Bulletin #A040173 APPLICATION Update Lincoln Financial Field & The Georgia Dome

Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, a facility that was indicative of the all-purpose stadium craze in the 1970’s, was home to the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles for more than 30 years. Featuring an Astroturf playing surface that many athletes equated to playing on Interstate 95 painted green, as well as antiquated locker rooms and player amenities, "The Vet" badly needed to be replaced.

So on May 7, 2001, construction began on Lincoln Financial Field, a state-of-the-art, football-only stadium designed to set a new standard of excellence for NFL facilities. In order to complete such a Herculean task, the project would require construction Lincoln Financial Field experts such as SPL Integrated Solutions, which was responsible for installing the audio/video systems and cabling. margin for error, SPL turned to Gepco was installed including its GA618GFC International, which provided an array series multi-pair cable, as well as its A veteran in the stadium integration of digital audio and video cables. VSD2001 and VT61811 high- business, SPL was hired to install the resolution video coax and triax in sound reinforcement system, the "The Linc" has a seating capacity of riser- and plenum-rated constructions. referee’s microphone system, the more than 68,000 and because of the coaches’ replay system, sound well-distributed sound system and "Lincoln Financial Field is a unique reinforcement, the paging system for incredible sight lines, there is not a bad stadium because it is not a continuous the locker rooms, the concourse seat in the house. To make sure the bowl like The Vet and other stadiums, television and audio systems, the sound experience matched the visual but instead it has open corners so that broadcast cabling systems and the A/V aspect, SPL needed Gepco’s digital the fans can view the downtown systems for the suites, bars and video, analog audio-twisted pair and Philadelphia area," says Fred Curdts, restaurants. Knowing that they needed camera cables, along with dozens of senior vice president of SPL. "As a to meet the very high standards of the RP panels and hundreds of connectors. result, the cable had to be laid down in National Football League without A total of 857,000 feet of Gepco cable a particular fashion, calling for much APPLICATION Update

Lincoln Financial Field & The Georgia Dome

greater lengths. In addition, the loss continuous paths around the perimeter upper decks particularly difficult to fill characteristics of the cable needed to and upper levels of stadium, it made with sound. In this case, the architect be low in order to be functional. We the cabling distances much greater in used the spires for flagpoles that the had to go with the Gepco cables, some places and it made the cable speakers were attached to, which because if your wiring and cabling is pull a lot harder. made it a challenge for both the faulty, that’s the kind of thing that can consultants and SPL to get equal put you out of business." The Linc employs a distributed audio coverage to all the seating. This also meant that longer cables would need to be stretched across the stadium, placing greater importance on the durability and flexibility of the Gepco cables.

"The precision electrical and mechanical specifications of Gepco HD coax ensure exceptional picture quality with a 3GHz bandwidth to allow for fully uncompressed digital HD video data," says Scott Fehl, Products Development Manager of Gepco.

Fehl continues, "Many of the performance characteristics of Gepco HD video coax are due to the Georgia Dome Control Room precision-drawn, pure copper conductor and crush resistant gas-injected dielectric. Our SPL was challenged to maintain the system, with speakers spread around proprietary gas-injection process sight lines of the downtown area, so the field as opposed to being grouped yields exceptionally uniform cell they couldn’t connect the stadium in a central cluster in one end zone. structure and conductor centering corners with cabling. They had to A distributed system is more while lowering the high-frequency actually get down to lowest levels challenging in that one has to have attenuation of the cable." without going all the way down to the physical structure for hanging ground. Because there were no speakers, making the canopy-less According to SPL, The Linc has a Financial Field is the most architec- and acts as a "local" control room turally and operationally exceptional and interface for visiting stadium we have had the opportunity broadcast trucks. The control room to be involved with." also provides a feed for each of the large-scale video screens at either In addition to new facilities, many end of the stadium. stadiums across the U.S. have been upgrading their infrastructures to "It’s a much larger facility than you provide spectators with more would imagine," Wile says. "It’s elaborate audio and video primarily used for football, but it also experiences, and the latest is The hosts concerts and other events so Georgia Dome. Home of the NFL’s there needed to be a great deal of Atlanta Falcons, The Georgia Dome flexibility to handle any type of event recently received an A/V makeover or media presentation. With so much of their Production Suite, courtesy equipment in such a tight space we of Comprehensive Technical Group needed cable that was (CTG) and Gepco, which provided easy to work an array of digital audio and video with, flexible

Gepco High Definition Coax cables. and could fit into a state-of-the-art broadcasting and "The venue’s management wanted to variety of sound system for High-Definition upgrade the entire facility to digital small Television. "It’s the first stadium that even though some of the equipment spaces." we’ve done that actually has HD was still going to remain analog," distribution within the stadium," says Jim Wile, president and co- Another continues Curdts. "Meaning the owner of Comprehensive Technical key aspect of cameras not only carry an HD signal Group. "We knew that the cabling we the cabling for out for broadcast, but also to the installed was not only going to exist The Georgia Dome plasma televisions located throughout for a long time, but would also be was the capability for Georgia Dome Equipment Racks stadium on the concourses and in the capable of passing analog, digital or network broadcast suites. The fans can watch the games even high-definition signals when that trucks to be able to in High Definition at the stadium, and time came. We used Gepco products come in for an event and "plug and to my knowledge that’s the first for this project with The Dome’s future patch." Often, several trucks from stadium that’s done that." needs in mind." different networks might be on-site to cover a game, so the ability to handle SPL did an incredibly thorough job The majority of the project focused on these various feeds was a huge factor. and was able to meet the August 3rd, The Georgia Dome’s control room, 2003 deadline for the inaugural which feeds several hundred video event, a soccer game between FC monitors on three internal cable Barcelona and Manchester United. channels "All things considered," Gillenwater concludes. "Lincoln APPLICATION Update

Gepco cable. Both our audio and quickly and efficiently, and to take video cables feature flexible yet UL advantage of every available feature in listed jackets that are easy to strip and a given piece of gear. terminate." "One of the handy things about Gepco "Gepco makes great cable that is is the standard size of their cable," readily available, which gave us a big says Wile. "Because of this, our edge in this particular project," Wile tooling can be consistent and we don’t Gepco Multi-pair Audio Cable says, adding that such an edge was need special tools. That’s convenient for critical, especially considering the us – we don’t have to take the extra To meet this project’s requirements, project’s tight 7-week window. The time or expense to outfit our installer CTG turned to Gepco’s VPM2000 and Georgia Dome needed to be ready for crews with separate tools." VSD2001 cables. A total of 40,000 the kickoff of the Falcons’ first 2003 feet of Gepco cable was installed. pre-season game.

According to Fehl, "Ease of termination Using the Gepco cable, CTG’s team has always been a key attribute of was able to attack the project more

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