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Audio-visual sales company Nagrit srl, based in Rome, Italy, is supplying two recording systems to Vatican City for the purposes of recording the speeches of Pope Francis while on upcoming international tours. The final system assembled by Nagrit includes a full complement of Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless technology, including LT portable transmitters with LR portable and SRc dual channel slot mount ENG receivers.
Nagrit srl, based in Rome for four decades, began as the local supplier of tape machines before growing into an AV equipment supply and services company. They’ve been Lectrosonics' largest dealer in Italy for many years. In 2016, the management at Nagrit was asked by contacts at the Vatican to tender for the portable papal recording system. According to Nagrit Sales Manager and Lectrosonics specialist Luca D'Anzelmo, the tender specified a system to follow the pope on his travels, "recording his speeches for archive purposes." Along with several other Italian AV suppliers, Nagrit was invited to the Vatican to present a suggested solution for the system, and to demonstrate the technology.
The final system Nagrit supplied comprises four Lectrosonics LT digital belt-pack transmitters with adjustable output power and three ranges of operational frequencies for maximum flexibility, two LR belt-pack digital receivers, and a slot-mount SRc dual-channel receiver. The latter can operate in two-channel receiver mode or as a single diversity channel, and is physically compatible with the SL-6 powering and wireless module for the Sound Devices 688 recorder, both of which Nagrit also included in the Vatican recording system. In the finished system, the Lectrosonics transmitters and receivers send the signals from the microphone back to the SL-6 module. The latter is mounted on the Sound Devices 688, which makes all of the speech recordings. The second 688 recorder was supplied as a spare for redundancy purposes.
In specifying this system, Luca D'Anzelmo and his team had to take account of a number of factors. The wireless microphone system had to be robust enough to withstand the rigors of international touring, and also offer a wide enough range of operating frequencies to be capable of working flawlessly anywhere in the world — a concern at a time when the availability of RF spectrum for wireless microphone use is becoming ever more restricted in the developed world, and usable radio frequency ranges vary greatly from country to country.
As part of their demonstration to the Vatican's representatives, Luca D'Anzelmo had to show that the suggested Lectrosonics equipment would meet the rigorous standards expected of it. "The Lectrosonics equipment's wide range of frequencies was very important, as the systems will be used in many different parts of the world," he explains. "We also conducted various tests in the Vatican City, just below the Vatican Radio and TV broadcast antennas, and made further tests inside the Vatican’s various palace buildings and even from inside the palaces’ thick walls. The results were very positive and the Lectrosonics systems proved themselves to be highly reliable.”
The completed recording system is now being prepared at the Vatican for the forthcoming Papal tour.
