NEW YORK— NBC rang in the holiday season with its 10th annual "Christmas Rockefeller Center" telecast recently, featuring an array of musical talent, network stars and the lighting of the world famous Christmas tree – the 75th to stand on the spot. New York RF specialists Kevin Sanford and Wireless First were on hand with an array of Sennheiser equipment, among others, to bring the event at in Rockefeller Center to the crowd and viewers at home watching the one-hour network primetime special.
Musical artists Tony Bennett, Josh Groban and Taylor Swift used Sennheiser SKM 5200 wireless handhelds fitted with Neumann KK 105 S capsules, according to Sanford. “And all the hosts were on Sennheiser SKM 5000s or 5200s with SK 250 miniature body pack transmitters.” Twelve Sennheiser evolution wireless G2 personal monitors systems were also on hand for the artists.
The star-studded extravaganza was co-hosted by Nick Lachey, Al Roker and Ashley Tisdale. The show also featured holiday greetings from stars of NBC’s primetime lineup such as Mariska Hargitay, Howie Mandel, Hayden Panettierre, Michelle Ryan and Donald Trump.
Sanford, who has been providing wireless services to the event for a number of years, continued, “On that show, I have two sets of EM 3032 receivers with multiple antennas, so I can have redundancy. I had superfluous receivers down on the ice rink that covered the rink and the host positions, then I had another set of receivers at 50th Street that covered 49th and 50th Streets.”
Co-host Roker likes to engage the crowd, notes Sanford, requiring uniform coverage of the entire area. “There were two sets of a dozen receivers with split antennas in all different directions so that I could cover everything. I never really know what’s going to happen; Al may suddenly decide to talk to the audience. It’s a very loose outline, so we have to be prepared.”
The six-block Rockefeller Center complex is an RF-intensive environment, encompassing WNBC and NBC network broadcast facilities in the GE Building, plus the adjacent Radio City Music Hall – whose Rockettes were featured on the telecast. New Qualcomm masts atop the Empire State Building made themselves regularly known, says Sanford. “I kept seeing this broadband data in the 700 MHz range every hour or so. I’d watch the noise floor go up 30dB for about five minutes then drop back down. But, he notes, the Sennheiser gear was up to the task at hand: “The show was flawless.”
The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree dates back to 1933, when a tree decked with 700 lights was erected in front of the RCA Building (now the GE Building). This year’s 84-foot-tall Norway spruce is hung with five miles of wire and 30,000 energy-efficient multicolored LEDs.
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