Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, afacility that was indicative of the all-purpose stadium craze in the1970’s, was home to the NFL’sPhiladelphia Eagles for more than 30years. Featuring an Astroturf playingsurface that many athletes equated toplaying on Interstate 95 painted green,as well as antiquated locker rooms andplayer amenities, "The Vet" badlyneeded to be replaced.

So on May 7, 2001, constructionbegan on Lincoln Financial Field, astate-of-the-art, football-only stadiumdesigned to set a new standard ofexcellence for NFL facilities. In order to complete such a Herculean task, the project would require constructionexperts such as SPL IntegratedSolutions, which was responsible forinstalling the audio/video systems and cabling.

A veteran in the stadium integrationbusiness, SPL was hired to install thesound reinforcement system, the referee’s microphone system, the coaches’ replay system, sound reinforcement, the paging system forthe locker rooms, the concourse television and audio systems, thebroadcast cabling systems and the A/Vsystems for the suites, bars and restaurants. Knowing that they neededto meet the very high standards of theNational Football League without

margin for error, SPL turned to GepcoInternational, which provided an arrayof digital audio and video cables.

"The Linc" has a seating capacity ofmore than 68,000 and because of thewell-distributed sound system andincredible sight lines, there is not a badseat in the house. To make sure thesound experience matched the visualaspect, SPL needed Gepco’s digitalvideo, analog audio-twisted pair andcamera cables, along with dozens ofRP panels and hundreds of connectors.A total of 857,000 feet of Gepco cable

was installed including its GA618GFCseries multi-pair cable, as well as itsVSD2001 and VT61811 high-resolution video coax and triax in riser- and plenum-rated constructions.

"Lincoln Financial Field is a unique stadium because it is not a continuousbowl like The Vet and other stadiums,but instead it has open corners so thatthe fans can view the downtownPhiladelphia area," says Fred Curdts,senior vice president of SPL. "As aresult, the cable had to be laid down ina particular fashion, calling for much

Bulletin #A040173

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Lincoln Financial Field &The Georgia Dome

Lincoln Financial Field

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Lincoln Financial Field & The Georgia Dome

greater lengths. In addition, the losscharacteristics of the cable needed tobe low in order to be functional. Wehad to go with the Gepco cables,because if your wiring and cabling isfaulty, that’s the kind of thing that canput you out of business."

SPL was challenged to maintain thesight lines of the downtown area, sothey couldn’t connect the stadium corners with cabling. They had to actually get down to lowest levelswithout going all the way down to theground. Because there were no

continuous paths around the perimeterand upper levels of stadium, it madethe cabling distances much greater insome places and it made the cablepull a lot harder.

The Linc employs a distributed audio

system, with speakers spread aroundthe field as opposed to being groupedin a central cluster in one end zone.A distributed system is more challenging in that one has to havephysical structure for hanging speakers, making the canopy-less

upper decks particularly difficult to fillwith sound. In this case, the architectused the spires for flagpoles that thespeakers were attached to, whichmade it a challenge for both the consultants and SPL to get equal coverage to all the seating. This alsomeant that longer cables would needto be stretched across the stadium,placing greater importance on thedurability and flexibility of the Gepcocables.

"The precision electrical and mechanical specifications of GepcoHD coax ensure exceptional picturequality with a 3GHz bandwidth toallow for fully uncompressed digitalHD video data," says Scott Fehl,Products Development Manager ofGepco.

Fehl continues, "Many of the performance characteristics of GepcoHD video coax are due to the precision-drawn, pure copper conductor and crush resistant gas-injected dielectric. Our proprietary gas-injection processyields exceptionally uniform cell structure and conductor centeringwhile lowering the high-frequency attenuation of the cable."

According to SPL, The Linc has a

Georgia Dome Control Room

state-of-the-art broadcasting andsound system for High-DefinitionTelevision. "It’s the first stadium thatwe’ve done that actually has HD distribution within the stadium," continues Curdts. "Meaning the cameras not only carry an HD signalout for broadcast, but also to theplasma televisions located throughoutstadium on the concourses and in thesuites. The fans can watch the gamesin High Definition at the stadium, andto my knowledge that’s the first stadium that’s done that."

SPL did an incredibly thorough joband was able to meet the August 3rd,2003 deadline for the inauguralevent, a soccer game between FCBarcelona and Manchester United."All things considered," Gillenwaterconcludes. "Lincoln

Financial Field is the most architec-turally and operationally exceptionalstadium we have had the opportunityto be involved with."

In addition to new facilities, many stadiums across the U.S. have beenupgrading their infrastructures to provide spectators with more elaborate audio and video experiences, and the latest is TheGeorgia Dome. Home of the NFL’sAtlanta Falcons, The Georgia Domerecently received an A/V makeover of their Production Suite, courtesy of Comprehensive Technical Group(CTG) and Gepco, which provided an array of digital audio and videocables.

"The venue’s management wanted toupgrade the entire facility to digitaleven though some of the equipmentwas still going to remain analog,"says Jim Wile, president and co-owner of Comprehensive TechnicalGroup. "We knew that the cabling weinstalled was not only going to existfor a long time, but would also becapable of passing analog, digital oreven high-definition signals when thattime came. We used Gepco productsfor this project with The Dome’s futureneeds in mind."

The majority of the project focused onThe Georgia Dome’s control room,which feeds several hundred videomonitors on three internal cable channels

and acts as a "local" control roomand interface for visiting broadcast trucks. The control roomalso provides a feed for each of thelarge-scale video screens at either end of the stadium.

"It’s a much larger facility than youwould imagine," Wile says. "It’s primarily used for football, but it alsohosts concerts and other events sothere needed to be a great deal of flexibility to handle any type of eventor media presentation. With so muchequipment in such a tight space weneeded cable that waseasy to workwith, flexibleand could fitinto a variety ofsmallspaces."

Anotherkey aspect ofthe cabling forThe Georgia Domewas the capability fornetwork broadcasttrucks to be able tocome in for an event and "plug andpatch." Often, several trucks from different networks might be on-site tocover a game, so the ability to handlethese various feeds was a huge factor.

Gepco High Definition Coax

Georgia DomeEquipment Racks

To meet this project’s requirements,CTG turned to Gepco’s VPM2000 andVSD2001 cables. A total of 40,000feet of Gepco cable was installed.

According to Fehl, "Ease of terminationhas always been a key attribute of

Gepco cable. Both our audio andvideo cables feature flexible yet UL listed jackets that are easy to strip andterminate."

"Gepco makes great cable that is readily available, which gave us a bigedge in this particular project," Wilesays, adding that such an edge wascritical, especially considering the project’s tight 7-week window. TheGeorgia Dome needed to be ready forthe kickoff of the Falcons’ first 2003pre-season game.

Using the Gepco cable, CTG’s teamwas able to attack the project more

quickly and efficiently, and to takeadvantage of every available feature ina given piece of gear.

"One of the handy things about Gepcois the standard size of their cable,"says Wile. "Because of this, our tooling can be consistent and we don’tneed special tools. That’s convenient forus – we don’t have to take the extratime or expense to outfit our installercrews with separate tools."

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HD/SDI Coax Specifications

Part #NominalOD Conductor

Insulation(type, OD) Shield

JacketType

ULType Impedance

Return Loss(100kHz-1GHz),(1GHz-3GHz)

Vel.ofProp.

Nominal Atten.(dB per 100 ft)

360MHz

1GHz

3GHz

VSD2001 .272” 18 AWG Solid BCDCR 6.4 Ω/Mft

Gas-injectedFoam PE, .180”

95% TC Braid,100% Foil PVC CMR 75 Ω (+/-2 ) >23dB, >21dB 83% 3.40 5.87 10.65

VPM2000 .242” 20 AWG Solid BCDCR 10.2 Ω/Mft

Gas-injectedFoam PE, .146”

95% TC Braid,100% Foil PVC CMR 75 Ω (+/-2 ) >23dB, >21dB 83% 4.38 7.57 13.36

Triax Specifications

Part #NominalOD Conductor

Insulation(type, OD)

InnerShield

Inner Belt(type, OD)

OuterShield Jacket

ULType Impedance

Return Loss(100kHz-1GHz),(1GHz-3GHz)

Vel.ofProp.

Nominal Atten.(dB per 100 ft)

360MHz

1GHz

3GHz

VT61811 .475” 14 AWG Solid BCDCR 2.5 Ω/Mft

Gas-injectedFoam PE,.285”

93% BCBraid PE, .365” 93% BC

Braid PVC CMR 75 Ω (+/-3 ) >22dB, >15dB 84% 2.68 5.00 9.60

Multi-pair Audio Specifications

Part # Conductors

Insulation(type, wall thick)/Color Code/Capacitance

PairShield

PairDrain

Pair Jacket(type, OD)/Color Code

# ofPairs

OverallShield

OverallCommon Drain

MasterJacket

ULType

GA618GFCSeries

22 AWG (7x30)Stranded TCDCR 15.3 Ω/Mft

PE, .010”/Red & Black/26 pF/ft betweenconductors

100% Foil22 AWG(7x30)Stranded TC

PVC, .140”/Base 10

2, 4, 6,8,12, 16,20, 26,or 32

100%Foil

16 AWG (19x29)Stranded TC,20 AWG (7x28)Stranded TC forGA61802GFC

Riser Gep-FlexTPE, Blue

CMR

Gepco Multi-pair Audio Cable

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