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.