[Tech1] Football coverage

[dave.mdv]

This varies from the over-hyped, OTT, 20+ cameras+VTs, gimicky coverage, 
by you-know-who, down to what I was frequently asked to do on one of 
Kendal Avenue's two dedicated sports PSC units, SUE2.   During the early 
FA Cup rounds many of the matches were from non-league grounds, often 
with no grandstand and standing room only! A rostrum would be built 
level with the halfway line and that was that! The SUEs carried an SQN4s 
mixer, an STC lip-mic, a 416, an RE50, a 635, a few ECMs , cans, 
assorted cables, and a Panamic pole. If I knew commentary was required I 
would get a DI box from stores which was a sound isolating transformer 
(usually used to get a feed of a guitar before it was connected to it's 
amplifier) . It had male and female XLR sockets  on both the input and 
output, and 'domestic' jack socket for the guitar lead. After plugging 
the lip onto SQN ch.1, I plugged the 416 into one end of the DI box, 
connected the same end of the box to the SQN ch.2 ( to get the phantom 
power), the other end of the box to ch.3. Channels 1 and2 were routed to 
the 'left' output and mixed as usual, on cans, ch. 3 went to the 'right' 
output. Left went to track 1 on the Betacam as a program mix and Right 
went to track 2 as the CFX ! Simplez! I even used this arrangement at 
Anfield one night! In that case, I had booked out and 816 as I knew we 
would be up on the gantry. The lip mic failed just before kick-off and 
Tony Gubba had to use the RE50, which did the job very well, as we were 
far enough away from the crowd! As an added extra, Roger Prior, my 
cameraperson, bought a digital stopwatch from Tandy which displayed 
time-of-day, I set the time-code on the Betacam to be the same and gave 
the stopwatch to the AP to do their log. Happy Days! Cheers, Dave