The National Tennis Center is the home of the annual US
Open Tennis Championship. This project was the expansion
and redevelopment of a forty-two acre site with the new 23,000 seat Arthur
Ashe Stadium as its centerpiece. Installation of all
Low-Voltage Systems including Broadcast TV/Radio, Scoring, Internal
Cable TV System, Internal Audio, Voice, and Computer
Networking. This project was a turnkey project and included the cabling
system as well as the active components. The cable plant
consists of over 2.2 million feet (415 miles) of high
performance cable with over 80,000 terminations. E-J also designed
and implemented a fiber optic network for the entire
campus on behalf of the USTA.
Expansion and redevelopment of the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing
Meadows Park, the home of the annual US Open Grand Slam Championship Tournament.
The existing site is 17.3 acres and is being expanded by 24.9 acres consisting
of a new 23,000 seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, fifteen site courts, nine new practice courts,
a new food court and renovations to the existing stadium.
E-J’s scope included the installation of turnkey
multi-media systems, covering network (CBS & International)
broadcast, internal cable TV distribution, scoring systems
and audio capabilities covering telephone, umpire, and
scorekeeper announcements. Systems supplied include television
head end equipment, remote fiber optic cameras, outdoor
high capacity loudspeakers and all electronic equipment.
BROADCAST SYSTEMS
The broadcast system installed by E-J is used by CBS/USA-TV
and all major foreign networks for full coverage of the
US Open . The stadium also contains six TV studios, three interview
rooms, thirty TV broadcast booths and ten radio broadcast booths.
The stadium has full camera coverage with camera platforms.
Camera boxes are each equipped with multiple custom-made
Triax, Precision Video, Coax, and Audio Cables runback
to the teleproduction area. This teleproduction area is
linked via a fiber optic network back to a remote satellite
up link site.
The site has four show courts with full broadcast capabilities.
The show courts also have fixed cameras with a fiber optic
link to the TV head end system in the stadium for broadcasters
to view on air matches without need for a crew. It is
also fed into the internal TV distribution.
INTERNAL TV DISTRIBUTION
The USTA campus contains a dedicated cable TV system.
Its' five miles of Broadband trunk cable & eighteen miles of
TV drop cable feed over 1000 TV’s throughout the
site with a variety of programming choices. This state
of the art 750MHz system is capable of generating over
117 channels from a multitude of sources, including direct
feeds from the many cameras placed throughout the stadium,
as well as regular broadcast TV, financial news and a variety
of movie choices.
AUDIO
The Audio system is comprised of many stand alone sub
systems, which are linked together via a computer controlled
digital audio matrix custom programmed by E-J. This 15,000
watt system is carried throughout the complex as a second
audio program (SAP) distributed on the cable TV system.
In addition, the audio system generates the output for
the speech reinforcement of the umpire and scorekeeper
on Stadium Court and the show courts. Outdoor loudspeaker
systems are used for this and are sized based on coverage
area.
The audio system also distributes audio signals for broadcasters
use. These signals are umpire, scorekeeper, ambient sound,
and interview room feeds.
COMPUTERIZED SCORING SYSTEM (IDS)
All courts including Stadium Court are fed back to main
scoring computer room in new stadium. Scoreboards are throughout
campus. Scores and statistics are relayed to all scoreboards.
The Information Display System (IDS) maintains all scores
and statistics for all matches including those in progress
on site and is updated in real time.
All courts (including stadium) are equipped with clocks,
scoreboards and radar guns that tie into scoring system.
Throughout the site PCs tied in to systems can retrieve
match statistics on current or past matches.
The scoring system is tied together on the USTA Fiber Optic Network and is
the first permanent scoring system of its kind.
USTA FIBER OPTIC NETWORK
Five miles of Fiber Optic Cables tie the entire campus
together supporting multiple applications.
E-J designed and implemented this Siecor fiber optic network
to support systems including Video, Audio, scoring, point
of sale, USTA Intranet and gateway to the internet.
TELEPHONE
The telephone cable plant, a certified Lucent/AT&T
Systimax Structured Cabling System, is fully distributed
to the entire campus. The new stadium houses the USTA’s
upgraded Northern Telecom PBX system. The stadium will have
four telephone closets per level. Riser cabling emanates
from the PBX room. Telephone stations are run for back
office, media rooms, private suites, broadcast booths and
pay phones throughout stadium.
For the site, feeders are run from stadium PBX to hubs
throughout site for distribution to field courts, outbuildings,
pay phones, teleproduction area, and corporate hospitality
areas. All site work is outside plant with power protection
on all cable terminations.
This system is cabled to provide over 14,000 telephone
lines in its current configuration. This telephone system
will support many applications including analog voice (POTS),
digital voice, ISDN, IEEE802.3 Ethernet, IEEE 802.5 Token
Ring, and RS232D. E-J, a Lucent SCS VAR, has provided the
USTA with a fifteen year performance warranty for this
cabling plant. |