Birds Nest Stadium. This was what we saw on our walk to work each day.
Pete Erskine was hired by Riedel Communications to program and manage their Digital Matrix system for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as the Paralympics. Erskine, along with sixteen other crew, worked as the Wired Comms Manager for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and the Paralympics. He was the sole person responsible for programming the Artist Digital comm system—one of the largest intercom systems assembled to date for an Olympic opening ceremony and most likely, the largest digital intercom system ever installed.
Yet another beautiful night coming home from one of the 33 full run-throughs we did to prepare.
- 400+ active ports on eight nodes
- 56 channels of radios interfaced
- 6 FM transmitters for in ears
- 18,000 FM radios (custom built for Riedel in China with an American chip) were the cast in ears
- four channels of Sennheiser Evolution ears
- 40 Telex BTR 825 beltpacks
- ten channels of Tetra radios
- a master transmit and Receive antenna system covering all the interior tunnels, under field pit and the immediate area around the stadium
- forty-five Riedel panels
- 150 C3* digital beltpacks.
We actually were quite lucky to stay near the stadium. Riedel's China office was located there as well. The field labeled Me is where I was on nice sunny days, reading after Starbucks.
These are the Duplex radios repeaters along with the in ear monitor TX. Note the BTR bases at the bottom of the right rack. There were another 5 racks of simplex radio bases as well.
Each day on the way to work, the entire comms crew would meet at the entrance to the Riedel China offices to plan the day.