Trilogy takes Qatari camel racing to the finish line

Al Shahaniya racetrack, Qatar’s premier camel racing venue located 25 kilometres Northwest of Doha, has upgraded and expanded Trilogy Communications’ Commander intercom system. The Trilogy system was supplied and installed by Salam MediaCast for the Hejen Race Organising Committee, which operates the Al Shahaniya racetrack.

 Whilst the racetrack has operated a basic Commander system for over a decade, a major upgrade to the track facilities and buildings for the 2010-11 season has just been completed, which necessitated considerable additional functionality from the communications system. The Commander system has been replaced by a larger 36-port system with significantly increased performance and functionality including a range of wireless interfaces.

Coverage of the races comes from five fixed camera positions around the track and also from five vehicle-mounted cameras. Communications from these positions come from Trilogy’s Audax wireless system which uses Kenwood portables to communicate back to the gallery where a wide array of lever key panels are in use, including the popular 8 key desktop and 32 key rackmount variants.

Races are run around an oval course ranging from 6 to 10 kilometres and races have extremely generous prizes commensurate with the sports standing in the region.

Programming in the build up to the races and the post race analysis and discussion is provided by Qatar Television, which operates its own large Commander Intercom system allowing for very easy ties to the Al Shahaniya system.

Sami El Shafai, executive director at Salam Media Cast, said the customer was pleased with “the performance and quality of its existing Commander system, which has worked faultlessly since it was commissioned in the mid 1990s”.

“Performance like this explains the high regard with which Trilogy systems are held in the region and is the reason we recommended an updated and expanded Trilogy system for this project”.