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CATS Ltd. brings Clear-Com’s DX210 system into the wild to stream live the great migration of Africa
CATS Ltd. based in Kenya does it all and serves as a distributor, integrator, technical support team and rental partner for local broadcasting needs. The company is small, but powerful Clear-Com® DX210 Digital Wireless Intercom has been an integral part of their entire product range for nine years, from musical performances to TV shows, talk shows, baking competitions, esports and, most recently, live streams. In August of this year, Ayaz Rajput, founder of CATS Limited, was hired by renowned wildlife photographer Jeffrey Wu to help with a one-of-a-kind livestream production of The Great Migration in Africa. Despite the novelty of this request, the existing DX210 system from CATS was the perfect standalone solution.
Award-winning wildlife photographer Jeffrey Wu was commissioned by the video sharing platforms TikTok and Douyin to curate the content of the live stream and bring a global community of viewers together to this spectacular wildlife exhibition. The Great Migration takes place with a change in the season and causes millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles and more to migrate from Tanzania’s Serengeti to the more fertile grasslands in Kenya’s Masai Mara.
Ayaz and Jeffrey Wu’s longtime local production partner Irfan Kassam have teamed up to provide the technical know-how for this five-day event, which will see app users starting on April 25thNS until 29NS to see the action unfold.
The project required seamless communication between two tour vehicles, each equipped with three cameras, vision mix, audio mix and streaming equipment and fed by on-board inverters and solar generators during the many hours of operation in the field. The DX210 main station was in a vehicle with the antennas oriented outside the vehicle and a BP210 2-channel 2.4 GHz wireless beltpack used in the second vehicle. With Ayaz in one vehicle and Ifran in the other, this configuration provided the channel to coordinate vehicle movements, technical troubleshooting, and any other inter-vehicle communication.
In the open level, the production team could easily achieve 100-150 meters of wireless intercom range, which allowed the two presenters who narrated the content – one spoke Mandarin and the other English – enough space between the vehicles so as not to disturb each other, while Ayaz and Irfan can still communicate through communication.
TikTok and Douyin also partnered with the Kenya Tourism Board, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Conservation International, at this event to promote the importance of biodiversity and inspire wildlife conservation around the world.
“I am honored to be part of such a noble cause,” said Ayaz. “It’s crazy to think that such a small team could use a single DX210 system to get this message across on a global platform. After nine years of service in the industry here in Nairobi, customers and employees have got used to our Clear-Com system, which stands for the high quality of service that CATS Limited is known for. “
