CASE STUDY: Repeat business at Port Hedland

When a mineral resources provider needed to extend its underground comms, it chose RFI DSP-based repeaters.

When a major mineral resources provider in Western Australia needed to extend the coverage of its underground communications, it chose RFI to supply and integrate a rebroadcast and combining system.

RFI facilitated the extended VMRS (voice mobile radio system) coverage within underground areas, specifically linking the communications of the rail car dumpers and a conveyer belt tunnel under the harbour to the Port Hedland terminal and Finucane Island ore-transfer stations.

In order to provide extended coverage, this project required two separate but similar networks coupled to existing multichannel base station sites.

The first was located at the Port Hedland Nelson Point terminal to extend coverage to the underground dumper works. This solution required one RFI DSPbR repeater, configured as a master to interface directly into an existing multichannel base station transmitter combiner and receiver multi-coupler.

The DSPbR is a multichannel digital signal processor-based repeater used to improve coverage inside buildings, tunnels, underground and remote areas. It covers VHF, UHF 700 and 800 MHz bands and is modular, expandable and fully configurable.

The DSPbR has significant advantages over conventional broadband repeaters due to its channelised (narrow-band) design.

Using a ‘star’ topology configuration, the DSPbR was connected to numerous slave DSPbRs using fibre-optic cables. Each slave-configured DSPbR was then used to provide extended bidirectional radio coverage below ground via a network of leaky feeder cables at four different locations.

The second network was located on the Finucane Island base station site with one DSPbR again configured as a master connected to numerous slave DSPbRs. This provided extended coverage for a further set of car dumper works below ground