Supporting Traveling Veterans

Vietnam traveling wall is consoling and inspirational

• By Skip Haight
• Sep 01, 2013

Seen by millions since its dedication in 1982, the American Vietnam Veterans Traveling Tribute (AVVT) Wall is a scaled-down replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., but with a specific mission: “Create a forum for communities to come together 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 arranged for the AVVT Wall to appear from June 13th through 16th on the grounds of Lindbergh High School. It was estimated, in advance, that more than 100,000 people would visit this 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, Mo. Embracing this assignment to provide security to this very visible yet temporary event, Mike Polizzi, president of ABF Security, turned to respected security industry manufacturer’s representatives R.W. Kunz & Associates, Inc. to recommend a comprehensive solution for this challenge.

R.W. Kunz’s Mark Bowers and Brad Cooper selected equipment from Pelco for the IP camera and recording equipment, and ComNet Communication Networks was chosen to provide the network transmission equipment.

Facing the unique challenge of the wall being temporarily placed on display, the thought of running cables or using fiber optic transmission was impractical, so Bowers recommended the all-new, easy-to-install and use ComNet NetWave Wireless Ethernet product line as the perfect solution for this application.

Prior to the installation, a site survey was performed, but when the time for the installation came, trailers and tents supporting the event were in the path of the wireless transmission. However, even with these potential obstacles in the line of sight, all the cameras were installed without any trouble. Four rugged IP cameras by Pelco with SureVision, 1.2 Megapixels, day/night, AF, low-light performance and WDR 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, NetWave NW1 point-to-multipoint models were selected, and four NW1 client units were installed close to the camera locations. The camera output was 10 frames per second at a 1280x720 resolution. Using H.264 compression, each camera required 2.5Mbps of bandwidth, with the total from the four cameras using 10Mbps. The IP video was seamlessly transmitted back to a NW1 access point from which the recorded data was collected and fed into a Pelco DSSRV recording system.

This event consistently drew a large crowd, and even though both the wall and the security were considered temporary, there was no doubt as to the longterm effectiveness of the Ethernet product line.

The Saint Louis County Police Department monitored the four-day event constantly. No incidents occurred and the system operated flawlessly for the duration of the wall’s stay.

When you actually see the American Vietnam Veterans Traveling Tribute for the first time, you can’t help but feel incredibly patriotic and proud to think of yourself as an American. The wall is both consoling and inspirational, evoking emotions for all families whose loved ones have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country.

This article originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of Security Today.