Sharjah Grand Mosque opened its doors in 2019, becoming United Arab Emirates’ second-largest mosque. The building occupies 185,806 square metres with a capacity to accommodate over 25,000 worshippers.
To make the prayers available to all faithful, even if they can’t visit the sermons, Sharjah Government Planning Department appointed the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority (SBA) as a consultant to implement a modern and innovative Broadcast System to cover the events within the mosque. The SBA again approached Broadcast Solutions ME to deliver a broadcast system to support the mosque’s busy calendar of Islamic events that includes several cameras, an impressive control room and consultancy. The customer demanded a broadcast system capable of airing these prayers and events to the masses with minimal human resources.
Broadcast Solutions ME implemented a 36-input Ross Carbonite production switcher. Further Ross Video equipment in the signal chain is a pair of large Carbonite multiviewers, while SHC-9642 SDI to HDMI converters from Ross feed into Blackmagic Design SmartView4Ks used for audio monitoring. At the core of the system, a Ross ULTRIX-FR1 32×32 router handles signal management. To add further video signals to the programme Broadcast Solutions ME also deployed four Grass Valley camera control units in the control room desk to be connected to cameras using the connection panels in the hall. If an external broadcaster wanted to bring their cameras, they could easily connect to that wall box, and those cameras can still be controlled from the control room.
To assist communication between teams, Broadcast Solutions installed an RTS Odin16-port intercom system. Further audio equipment taking care of all audio signals in the system is a Yamaha DM1000VCM 48-channel digital mixer fitted with an MY16-MD64 Madi I/O card to provide the audio mix for the broadcast feeds.
Broadcast Solutions ME’s project manager Salah Ayoub comments on the project: “But one of the major challenges we had was the time-frame. SBA would broadcast the opening ceremony from inside the prayer hall just two weeks after we began working on the project. Everything had to be completed during that time: shipping, installation and configuration.”
 appointed to implement a Broadcast System to cover events within the Sharjah Grand Mosque.){kind=link}