Skyscraper workers receive digital radios

SalfaCorp, one of the main groups of Chilean companies with international presence linked to the areas of engineering, construction and real estate, was awarded the contract for the construction of the Costanera Center in Santiago, Chile.

The Costanera Center consists of a complex of four skyscrapers. The tallest of the four buildings, Gran Torre Santiago, will be 300 m tall, making it the tallest building in Latin America when completed and second tallest in the Southern Hemisphere, only behind the Q1 of 322 m tall in Australia. Two other buildings will be 170 m high and a fourth one will be smaller.

For construction, the communication between the crane operators and their load operators has always been difficult, especially for the construction of skyscrapers as the walls between impose daunting barriers to signal transmission.

During the construction, each crane works with an operator on the ground (load operator) who provides load transportation instructions, as the crane operator is virtually unable to see the load and has to trust his operators on the ground. Thus the efficient communication between the crane operators and their load operators is critical to ensure that they get the right shipment to the right location.

Acmetel, a Hytera dealer in Latin America, initially provided an analog solution to SalfaCorp for the construction of the Costanera Center with Hytera conventional UHF portable radio TC700 for the load operators and mobile radio TM610 for the crane operators.

This solution worked well until the buildings began to grow taller and take more shape, creating more blind zones and interference for the radios situated at the top of the towers. The Hytera DMR digital communications solution was then selected.

The solution adopted the PD78X DMR portable radio and MD78X DMR mobile radio for load operators and crane operators respectively, together with the use of repeaters, which increases the signal coverage and eliminates the possibility of interference.

Compared with the analog solution, staff using the new DMR system experienced no background noise on transmissions, extended battery life on handheld radios and the ability to make individual and group calls.

The DMR radios are compatible with the previous analog radios, allowing the user to enjoy the benefits brought by leading digital technologies while taking the most out of the existing analog system.

“Hytera digital equipment was the perfect solution for operating cranes and transporting loads safely and efficiently as part of the Costanera Center project,” commented an engineer from SalfaCorp.