Dejero’s EnGo 265 mobile transmitter with GateWay Mode maintained highly reliable internet connectivity for live streaming during a historic intercept of a tornado in Nebraska.
Storm chaser Reed Timmer and his crew Team Dominator have been pushing live streaming and scientific data collection from inside tornadoes and hurricanes to the edge. In May 2023, Team Dominator captured a 55 mb pressure deficit in Spalding, Nebraska with its microbarometer in what may be the best tornado intercept recorded so far. Even with winds between 160 to 170 mph, Reed Timmer was able to maintain uninterrupted internet connectivity from inside the wedge tornado using a Dejero EnGo 265 video mobile transmitter with built-in GateWay Mode.
Timmer’s armoured vehicle, the Dominator 3, has been equipped with a Dejero EnGo since March 2023. The mobile transmitter supplies the storm chaser team with live video transmission and encoding, and its GateWay Mode also allows them to access an internet hotspot from any location, even in challenging terrains.
“Our mission is to increase awareness of the dangers of a storm to the public, provide live alerts and status, gather scientific information and continuously engage with our subscribers as we intercept a storm,” said Reed Timmer, who is known as an extreme meteorologist.
He said that video does this better than any other medium. “We often start with over 20,000 concurrent live viewers on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms, all wanting to see us execute our plans,” he said. “If we lose the signal, the entire mission is at risk and viewers begin to drop off. Dejero’s reliable connectivity not only helps us to keep people informed and engaged about a tornado heading towards their town, it also enhances our brand and credibility as storm chasers.”
With the EnGo’s GateWay Mode, highly reliable, high-bandwidth internet access is made possible from the Dominator 3 vehicle using Dejero Smart Blending Technology. In this case, the Dejero device is blending six cellular connections from network carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon to improve reliability, expanded coverage and greater bandwidth. The device is capable of blending multiple wired (broadband/fibre) and wireless (3G/4G/5G, Wi-Fi, satellite) IP connections.
Using GateWay Mode, the team can use an SRT / WebRTC / RTMP / NDI / RTSP / RIST streaming camera app to transmit live feeds from vehicle-mounted, handheld and drone cameras from storm locations to the Team Dominator production office located in Austin, Texas. There, graphics and context are added, and the packaged video is delivered as a continuous live stream to Reed Timmer’s internet subscribers.
“Thanks to our mobile streaming capabilities with Dejero, we have been able to reach about 20 million people a month during peak tornado season, and we hope to use this technology for hurricane season as well and continue streaming life-saving information to those in the path of these dangerous storms,” said Reed.
The EnGo’s GateWay Mode also enables Timmer to transfer large hi-res video files from the field, after the live stream, for post-production editing and upload. Reed can also access important meteorological systems and scientific data via the internet, and his team can access it from multiple devices. www.dejero.com
