The case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which is reported constantly in the national and international media, involves the latest technology to enable the news to “fly” from one side of the world to the other. A grey nine-seater van would normally go by totally unnoticed, but once it puts up its antenna, a satellite dish more than a metre in diameter, it is impossible to overlook its presence. The vehicle, designed especially for Sky News, enables the pictures and sounds caught by cameras on the ground to be broadcast in real time to a global audience: potentially billions of television viewers.

The Sky team, who are following the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann closely at present, have this vehicle to broadcast a video and audio signal (image and sound) via a satellite which receives the signal and sends it back to London.

Paul Davies, Sky News technical engineer, told the Algarve Observer that they use the Intelsat 603, a small satellite that is at the end of its useful life of some 10 to 15 years, but it is used a lot by news channels because the cost is more manageable. He added that the only problem was that this satellite has a figure-of-eight orbit, its traces a figure of eight every 24 hours, which means that they have to reposition the antenna from time to time so as not to lose the signal.

Except for the antenna, the van is very similar from the outside to any other van of the same model, but inside, instead of the normal seats, only the front ones remain and the rest is a display of technology.

Paul Davies said that the vehicle had been designed to be operated by just one person, who might not be an engineer, it could be a camera operator. The car enables just two cameras to be connected but it has bigger “sisters” in London, which allow the connection of up to six cameras and 16 sounds channels. The engineer said that two were being used in Paris for the election of Sarkozy and another one in Northern Ireland, shrugging his shoulders, and so it was left to this one to do the three thousand kilometres from London to Praia da Luz in Lagos.

The cosmos is ours

Another piece of equipment that is being used a lot by the English team following the Madeleine McCann case are the “BGans”, two light, compact panels that look more like portable computers, and are used to send the image and sound by satellite via an Internet protocol (IP).

Paul Davies said that basically it was as if it was a normal Internet connection but via satellite. The speed is 256 Kb/sec, but if you put two together you get double the speed, i.e. 512 Kb/sec, a speed that is sufficient to send quite good quality sound and an image of average quality.

Paul Mackeson, cameraman with the British Channel 5 said that they use it a lot, that it was good for live broadcasts with presenters, because there is not a lot of movement and the amount of information is not too great. Paul Davies of SKY added that its big advantage is that it can be used almost anywhere, in the desert in places where there is no electricity because it is battery-powered.

All you have to do is turn on the camera, connect it to the portable computer, plug it in and search for the satellite, and that’s it, he said. Ready for another live broadcast from Praia da Luz, or anywhere else.

source: Algarve Observer