In an average year Calrec’s Customer Support Engineers are on the road most of their working life. With commissioning, training, software and hardware upgrades, network upgrades, system flow advice and IP fault-finding – Calrec’s team of trained engineers are busy people.

The last 15 months has been far from average. While commissioning, training and demos have all been done remotely, getting physically stuck in is in a Support Engineer’s blood.

Calrec’s Steve Gligorivic has missed it more than most. He was the last Customer Support Engineer to return to the UK when the Pandemic began in March 2020, and he was the first to jump on a plane in June when restrictions were eased.

Steve and his colleague Elliot are currently supporting a host of international broadcasters producing live sports content, both physically at venues and at remote sites across the world. It’s a large area to cover, with more than 35 x consoles and 3 x router cores physically stationed on site, and 10 x RP1 remote production hubs helping broadcasters mix content remotely.

A mix of physical consoles, outside broadcast trucks, remote production cores and flypack equipment, across IP and proprietary networks, and across multiple sites, provides a lot of challenges. And one thing that the Covid 19 pandemic has encouraged is an expansion of remote working workflows which broadcasters are taking full advantage of. A reluctance – and often inability – to travel has accelerated this even further.

Many broadcasters are covering sporting events by using Calrec RP1 technology or taking international feeds and providing dedicated VO commentary at its studio, like Canada’s CBC has with two Calrec Brio consoles.

“There are lots of different networks and workflows, and that’s one of the benefits of being on-site. While there are very few repairs or issues to administer, most of the work is about working with customers on efficiencies. Different broadcast networks are working in different ways and being able to discuss what people are trying to achieve and having the equipment right there is invaluable. These things can be done remotely, but it’s faster, more efficient, and more thorough to be able to discuss a workflow in real-time.

But it’s not all about technology.

“It’s been a great excuse to catch up with old friends, and I’ve been able to visit our Distribution Partners, Hibino, who I haven’t seen since May 2019 – and it comes in handy for spares holding, especially as Hibino is based in Tokyo! We needed to get hold of a spare I/O controller card, and I was able to go to Hibino’s new office (which has got stunning views over the bay – you can’t see that on Zoom!) to borrow a card from them. I ended up staying with the customer for a couple of hours to help with config, and as the main operator had never used an Artemis before, I was able to provide some informal training on the Artemis monitoring system.

“Travelling in person is an opportunity to renew and to develop relationships, and that’s what I have missed over the last 15 months. It’s great to be back on the road!”