Communications Specialists preparing for the Etape Pennines Cycle Race. One of the UK’s Toughest Sportives

Date: 20th July 2014
Distance: 60 miles
Climbing: 1,600m
There are three entry types into Etape Pennines.

We are very excited to join the Etape Pennines cycle race once again in support of their communications. Being one of the UK’s premier cycling races it is a good event for our team. Set in the beautiful countryside of County Durham and located in a busy market town, Barnard Castle is the perfect setting for this year’s Marie Curie Cancer Care Etape Pennines.

From the moment the racers set off they find themselves riding through stunning rolling countryside which will ease them gently into what is about to come! The Etape Pennines is the cycle challenge of the year and one event where all competitive riders want to take part.

The Marie Curie Cancer Care Etape Pennines route covers a distance of 61 miles (98.1km) and has a total ascent of 1608m, please see the route map on the Etape Pennines website.

In preparation for this event we are preapring all our communications for 7 sites across the event. We have prepared and programmed 200 Motorola Digital Radios, consisting of Motorola DP3400, DP3401 and 60 of our brand new hire stock; Motorola Digital DP4401. We are using over 400 batteries, 35 x 6 way chargers, 6 mobiles and 6 repeaters

The Motorola DP4401 is one of the latest DP Radios from Motorola on the market. Communication Specialists are one of the few companies that have these radios available.

Motorola DP4401
Available in UHF and VHF frequency bands, the DP4000 Series is easy to use and features up to 32 channel capacity, five programmable buttons, emergency button, IP57 specifications for submersibility and FM intrinsically safe option, with the DP4401 transmitting GPS locations.

Technical Information
The Pennines is a challenging environment to install a temporary radio system. The weather has been dry over the last two months and there is risk of fires breaking out on the hills and heath land. One of our teams Land Rover Defender still managed to get stuck up to its axels due to the soft wet spongy undergrowth/mud.

Despite this setback two repeater sites were installed and commissioned yesterday with interconnecting microwave link.

One of the risks the team faced this weekend was heavy rain and thunder storms, so particular care is being taken in the location of the antennas and equipment including earth bonding of mast, antennas and generators and the use of lightning protection on the antenna feeds to the repeaters.

The team had two days left for installation of two more repeater sites and two microwave hop sites as well as the control room.

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