PWS nets Gold Cup frequency coordination contract
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 22 August 2017

When the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup kicked into action at various venues around the US earlier this summer, Professional Wireless Systems (PWS) was on location supplying TV broadcast frequency coordination for the multi-city football tournament.

The 2017 Gold Cup was held at 14 venues in 13 cities. The Dallas metro area hosted two match days during the Group Stage: one at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, and another at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. Nine other cities hosted Group Stage matches as well, including Cleveland, Denver, Harrison, Houston, Nashville, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa. The knock out rounds of the tournament were held in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The final was hosted in Santa Clara, California, at the Levis' Stadium.

Preparation for the frequency coordination began about a month prior to the tournament via a website hosted by PWS. This served as a platform for all vendors of Gold Cup to identify what frequencies they planned to use. PWS coordinated the compiled frequency lists with the local Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) and submitted all of the SBE-approved frequencies to the FCC for final confirmation.

"Coordinating a single location was fairly easy, but coordinating all of the cities and parties wanting to use the spectrum was the biggest challenge for us on this project," said Kasey Gchachu, project manager, PWS. "At each venue, we conducted a sweep of the area to ensure that the frequencies allocated were available. Once complete, we set up camp for the media and to handle any last-minute requests before moving on to the next venue. In addition, we had to make sure we stayed clear of all public safety frequencies, which differed depending on what city we were in."

One of the unexpected challenges the PWS team faced was dealing with affiliates, mostly from South America, who came in with unlicensed and unprotected equipment. The RF team also had to ensure all the foreign media's equipment was legal for use in the United States.

"We were working under the direction of Broadcast Service Group (BSG), the production company who hired us to handle the frequency coordination portion of these events and who managed the various vendors involved," added Gchachu. "This was a huge undertaking on our part and something that would not have gone as smoothly as it did without the help and guidance from BSG production manager Linnie Morgan and her team of technical directors. They did a great job, as did the entire PWS team, which included Jason LoGrande and Ryan Stotts."

The CONCACAF Gold Cup crowns a champion every two years; This year, the US Men’s National Team took home the trophy.