ETL engineers has provided RF components to Timeline Television, a market-leading provider of broadcast technology and services as well as managed services and system integration, for their first TV uplink vehicle.
The Timeline Television portfolio includes Outside Broadcasts, RF and Satellite as well as Post-production facilities in the UK. Timeline Television is trusted by some of the biggest brands in the UK and international television market - including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and BT Sport - and delivers technical and creative facilities for programmes as diverse as live music and awards shows, political conferences, global and domestic sporting competitions, light entertainment and current affairs.
With its services in high demand, Timeline Television decided to build its first uplink vehicle, designated "RF1", a six camera UHD production truck that is also able to operate as a comms vehicle with six radio cameras and four talkback channels. The vehicle - which was designed fully in-house - has two powerful independent transmission paths with dual chain redundancy on both; with a built-in 2.4 m KU band system and a 2.4m towable trailer-based dish for the second path, if required. RF1 also has a 1.2 m KA system for IP services.
Timeline Television needed to build an RF tray to handle the routing of various L-Band signals around the transmission paths, and needed an equipment manufacturer to provide the required solutions to make this possible. They ultimately selected ETL Systems because of the expertise, experience and custom solutions offered by the ETL RF components team.
After understanding what exactly Timeline Television needed, ETL engineers designed and manufactured products specific to Timeline Television's requirements, which included L-Band splitters and combiners for the RF tray. This allowed Timeline Television to correctly route all signals around the two dishes easily.
The project was an outright success, with the vehicle built and on the road by the end of December 2016. The vehicle has been very busy since operating up and down the country and has completed work for both BT Sport and the BBC.
