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December 2004
Santa Choses Gigawave for 'SleighCam'
'Spirit of Norway' Wins Dubai Grand Prix
Race of Champions

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Santa Chooses Gigawave for 'SleighCam'
Live television coverage of Santa Claus delivering presents to good children around the world on 24 December will be possible for the first time thanks to Gigawave digital microwave links.
 
The tests have been so successful that Santa's News Network (SNN) have decided to screen live coverage of Santa delivering his presents on their new 'Pay Per View' Channel, from 1100 UTC on 24 December until 1800 (UTC) the following day.

It has been calculated that Santa Claus has 31 hours, allowing for the rotation of the earth and different time zones, to deliver presents to the 378 million children who believe in him. This equates to 822.6 visits per second.

In practice, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat and/or drink whatever snacks have been left, climb back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (approximately 2 pounds), the sleigh has a payload of 321,300 tons. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 punds. However, despite the fact that 'flying reindeer' can pull ten times this load, Santa still needs 214,200 reindeer to pull the sleigh! This increases the gross vehicle weight of Santa's sleigh to 353,430 tons - more than twice the weight of the 'Queen Elizabeth II', launched earlier this year.

Over 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this heats the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entereing the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer each absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. Meanwhile, Santa is subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity.

Work on the remotely controlled 'SleighCam' started late in December 2003. Compared to a conventional racing car or motorcycle, the technical problems faced by the Gigawave design and development engineers were enormous. Using a sleigh, cleverly disguised as a Ferrari 360, they carried out secret tests at a race track in Lapland until they were satisfied that the system offered the reliability and performance demanded by Santa's links engineers.

Global coverage is provided using a number of strategicly placed ground receive sites, each with a diversity receiver. Signals from each receive site are then transmitted by satellite to Santa's Master Control Room near Rovaniemi, in Lapland,

Free Access to SNN for Gigawave Customers
In recognition of the part played by Gigawave engineers in helping to make the 'SleighCam' a reality, SNN have provided Gigawave with a special access code which allows free access to SNN's PPV Channel.

If you have kids who still believe in Santa Claus, contact the Gigawave Sales Team who will email you the access code. The office will be open until 1600 on Friday 24 December.
North Pole , Lapland - December 2004
'Spirit of Norway' Wins Dubai Grand Prix
Bjorn Rune Gjelsten and Steve Curtis in 'Spirit of |Norway' are the 2004 UIM Class 1 World Powerboat Champions after comfortably winning the final race of the season, in Dubai.
The Anglo-Norwegian pair made their customary explosive start and by lap four they had opened up an 11 second lead. However, their arch rivals Ali Nasser and Ali Al Qama, in Victory 7, had moved into second place and the battle for the World Championship was on.

With oil pressure dropping, Gjelsten and Curtis were willing to settle for second place but on lap five Ali Nasser and Ali Al Qama saw their title hopes disappear, retiring with a broken throttle cable. 'Spirit of Norway' went on to complete the 20-lap, 95.72Nm course in 57mins 38.92secs at an average speed of 114.66mph (184.50kmh).
In addition to seven remote cameras, Dubai TV used a digital downlink to transmit signals from a camera in a helicopter that was following the race, often only a few feet above the waves.

Dubai TV engineers who were using a new Gigawave diversity receiver to receive signals from 'Heli 1' were delighted with the results. So were some of the European broadcasters who commented, after the race, that they were the best aerial camera images they had seen all season.
Dubai , UAE - December 2004
Race of Champions
The Race of Champions pitches the best circuit racers, such as seven times F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, against the best off-road drivers in the world, to determine who is the fastest!
Gigawave engineers were at the 'Stade de France', in Paris, to provide on site technical support for BBC Outside Broadcasts, who were responsible for providing all the live on board camera material.

The Race of Champions is the only motorsport ecvent in which drivers compete against each other on an equal basis. The premise is simple, drivers compete for the title 'Champion of Champions' using identical cars on a parallel-track.

There are eight national teams, each consisting of one racing driver and one rally driver. In the first instance, the sixteen drivers compete in a series of knockout heats to determine their class champion. Finally, the winners race head-to-head with each other in a super final. This year's winner was Heikki Kovalainen, from Finland
For the event, BBC Outside Broadcast engineers equipped each of the cars with 100mw Digital Clip On transmitters, operating at 16QAM. Signals from the cars were received at the central receive point using two fan beam antennas a Gigawave Diversity receiver.
Stade de France , Paris - December 2004

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