When Philips again provided their 40 sq metre big screen to entertain tennis fans gathered on the Hill (now affectionately dubbed ‘Henman Hill’) during Wimbledon Tennis Fortnight, RG Jones — Wimbledon’s public address contractors — provided auxiliary audio playback via two W8LM Mini Line Arrays, ground-stacked on either side of the screen.

Simon Hodge joined overall project manager, Tim Speight, to help design and install the system. Said Simon, “The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club felt that as the popularity of the Hill has grown, the existing sound system was starting to prove inadequate. This year, the chosen position for the system dictated that each array could be only five elements deep.
“Admittedly, I doubted that this would be sufficient, but my fears were quickly allayed — it was a difficult project but using ViewPoint™ (Martin’s proprietary predictive software) as a guideline, I need not have worried.”

He added that despite arriving on site armed with his processing tools “the W8LC sounded great straight out of
the box.”

‘Henman Hill’ is situated adjacent to the new No. 1 Court. And Simon Hodge says one of the advantages of the W8LM system was not only the projection outfront but lack of spillage from the rear. “Because of the proximity of the screen to Centre Court the Club had experienced problems with the programme sound leaking into the audience — but this was so much more directional. I was surprised how far it threw, but at the same time it provided even coverage over a very wide, 180° area.”

With a crew anchored in the large Broadcast control room, RG Jones took the feed from host broadcasters, the BBC, and injected their own paging calls. “We were delivering either a direct source feed to the Hill from the BBC — or DVD during downtime,” said Tim Speight. “The general consensus was whether it was handling programme feeds or paging calls, the Martin system behaved exceptionally well.”

Celebrating their recent management buyout, RG Jones, have also completed a season working in the picturesque setting of Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, for Relevant Productions.

The flown Synco Martin W8LC Line array (configured 16 enclosures a side) was put through its paces during a variety of performances spanning a ten day period, including a classic event, children’s concert and a Glen Miller tribute orchestra.

“We had only just taken stock of the new kit and we had the entire 32-box system straight out on duty,” reports
Simon Hodge.

“We ran the Compact Line Array reasonably flat — and so far we just love it. It was a joy to use, both in terms of the ease it went in and out and the way it sounded.

“What was particularly impressive was the amount of gain before feedback — there was loads of headroom in
the system.”