The AVVT Traveling Tribute Wall is a scaled down replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC that has been seen by millions since its dedication in 1982. The mission of the American Veterans Traveling Wall is to “Create a forum for communities to come together and to Honor, Respect and Remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country and to educate all to the Cost of Freedom.”

This year, the Sunset Hills Historical Society of Saint Louis, Missouri, organised the event and the AVVT Traveling Tribute Wall was to appear from Thursday June 13th to Sunday June 16th on the grounds of Lindbergh High School in Saint Louis, Missouri. It was estimated in advance that over 100,000 people would visit the Wall during the four-day appearance.

With the potential for that many people gathering in one location, keeping everyone safe and secure was paramount. System integration for the event was assigned to ABF Security Systems of Fenton, Missouri. With the assignment to provide security to this very visible, yet temporary event, Mike Polizzi, ABF Security President turned respected security industry manufacturers’ representatives RW Kunz and Associates to recommend a comprehensive solution to this challenge. RW Kunz’s Mark Bowers and Brad Cooper selected equipment from Pelco for the IP camera and recording equipment and Comnet Communication Networks to provide the network transmission equipment.

Facing a unique challenge, in that the Wall was being only temporarily placed on display, the thought of running cables or using fibre optic transmission was impractical. Kunz’s Bowers recommended to ABF that they use the new Comnet Netwave wireless ethernet product line. This new Netwave product line has been designed to be very easy to install and use and was the perfect solution in this application. In fact, prior to the installation, a site survey was performed. When the time for the installation came, trailers and tents supporting the event were now in the wireless transmission path. However, even with this these potential obstacles in the line of sight, the cameras all came up without any trouble. Four Pelco IM Surevision 1.2 megapixel day/night AF low light WDR rugged cameras were placed at strategic locations, the furthest being 90 yards away from the monitoring location. Two cameras were observing the backside of the wall and two more were observing activity from the front. This setup gave complete coverage of the entire event.

To get the video back to the head-end monitoring location, the Comnet Netwave NW1 point to multipoint models were selected. The four NW1 client units were installed close to the camera locations. The camera output was 10 frames per second at 1280 x 720 resolution. Using H.264 compression, each camera required 2.5 Mbps of bandwidth, with total from the four cameras using 10Mbps. The Netwave NW1 handles up to 95Mbps, so the 10Mbps this installation required only a small percentage the Netwave NW1 capability. The IP-video was then seamlessly transmitted back to an NW1 access point. From there it was all being collected and feed into a Pelco DSSRV recording system.

One of the many advantages Netwave promises is how easy it is to set up and use the wireless ethernet system. Mike Polizzi and crew from ABF Security Systems, the integrator on the project report the Netwave system was very easy to install and use and the picture quality was great. According to Kunz’s Mark Bowers, “setting up the Netwave gear was as easy as it was promoted. It truly lives up to the “Power, Point and Play” promise Comnet pledges it is.”

The Saint Louis County Police Department monitored the event constantly for the entire four days the Wall was in place. No incidents occurred and the system operated flawlessly during the entire event. The event drew a very large crowd consistently over the course of the event. And even though both the wall and were considered temporary, there was no doubt as to the long-term effectiveness of the Comnet Netwave wireless ethernet product line.