Airborne Tetra equipment to be used in support of three cycle races has been included by Airwave in tests of the communications network which will be used during next year’s Olympic Games.

The events include the men’s Olympic road cycling race, over a distance of 250?km, on July 28, and the women’s race, covering 140?km, on the day following.

“The London 2012 road cycling events present some unique challenges for us, especially given the length of the course and attendant issues around logistics and traffic management”, commented Martin Benké, UK network services director for Airwave. “We were able to deploy a solution by using radio repeater equipment operated from two light aircraft flying above, which relayed radio signals from users on the ground to the control centre and vice versa. The talk traffic was in turn taken back to the LOCOG technical operations centre in Canary Wharf via VoIP.

“We deployed an additional two mobile base stations, providing coverage to various venue control centres: one at Hampton Court Palace and the other at Box Hill [Surrey]. These were connected back into the main Apollo network.”

A temporary and entirely separate analogue UHF/VHF radio system was also deployed, providing communications between the race convoy as it moved around the course and the race control centre.