DAMM secures upgrade from DMR to TETRA in Spool Base Vigra, Norway

The TetraFlex® system from DAMM provided secure and reliable TETRA radio communications for the Subsea 7 Spool Base Vigra, Norway, who produce pipes for the oil and gas industry. The initial upgrade from analogue UHF system to one of the leading DMR systems, proved not to meet the requirement, especially in terms of voice quality. After a short return to the analogue system, an upgrade to DAMM TetraFlex® was rapidly and successfully implemented, meeting the high demands for reliable and secure radio communication.

Officials from Subsea 7 elaborates on the challenges stating: “In the daily operation of the base, we have many operations ongoing simultaneously. These are operations, which require good communication in terms of both logistics, physical handling and safety. We have for several years used a communication system based upon analogue UHF with 10 channels and 6 repeaters. This open UHF network has worked well, but unfortunately, we found that we had unauthorized traffic, which disrupted our daily communication and production."

This became a serious security issue, especially in connection with the handling of heavy machinery and heavy loads. Reliable and safe communication is crucial for us under these operations!

We then decided to replace the existing analogue UHF system with a DMR system consisting of 5 repeaters and 60 hand terminals. Unfortunately, within short time it became clear that this system did not meet our requirements, especially in terms of voice quality.

This DMR system could not overcome the challenges of poor voice quality, and we then went back to the analogue UHF system.

After this, the choice was made to invest in a secure and reliable TETRA network. The TetraFlex® system has been operating succesfully since its implementation, and we have only positive feedback from the users.”

Petter Sørensen, general manager of 1-2-3 Communication AS who designed and commissioned the solutions states: “DAMM provided the intelligent decentralized infrastructure, as well as the built-in Dispatcher application. As an experienced provider of the complete radio communication solutions, we completed the installation and commissioning in one day, followed up by training on the second day. Working fast and efficient we are able to save both time and money for the customer.”