Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on products for sports and remote broadcasts.
Chiefs TV, the student-led broadcast team at Sequoyah High School in Canton, Ga., recently began using a Henry Engineering SportsCaster Broadcast Audio Control System along with two Sports Pods.
“We are a small high school broadcasting class with limited resources,” said Educational Specialist Brad Madd, instructor of audio, video, technology and film.
“We had been using an audio mixer and headsets that we connected to our broadcast kit. The original system was bulky and complicated for high school students to operate. It prevented us from having communication with our announcers, gave us limited control of the quality of sound and was cumbersome to set up.”
One difficulty was that the broadcasters were outside of the press box, a short distance from their broadcast crew. With the SportsCaster system and Sport Pods, they have been able to have a seamless connection with a minimum number of cables. “This switch has enabled us to display a greater amount of professionalism.”
Mann and company liked that SportsCaster worked essentially out of the box.
“Setup and breakdown times were cut in half. We are in a different venue almost each week and we cover multiple sports. We are now able to set up quickly, and our high school students now have a setup that is user-friendly and allows them to work independently.”
The students found the design and controls easy to use. They’ve been able to expand the show each week, starting with two commentators, then adding crowd and referee mics and sideline reporters.
“Unlike our previous setup, the SportsCaster allows our broadcasters to focus on the sports event, rather than continuously having to monitor audio and deal with technical issues,” Mann said.
The Talkback-Intercom system allows the team’s coach to be “in the ear of the commentators,” filling them in on game-specific situations. Senior Max Swain said this gives him the confidence to include more in-depth commentary. His partner, Jake Jira, likes the ability to ask questions and get the coach’s feedback.
Mann said the system also saves on time running cables and tuning audio. “We have been able to utilize that time to add multiple cameras, resulting in more coverage for our broadcasts and taking the hassle out of our audio. We can now include referee mics in our broadcast, so home audience can hear the refs announce game penalties.”
Taking the show on the road has helped the program grow. “We have used the system for multiple sports with great results. Our audience from www.chiefstv.org has noticed the changes. We constantly hear from our viewers that our broadcasts have evolved to a much more professional level.”
