Up, Up and Away...with ACCESS!

Here at Comrex, one of our favorite "off the clock" pastimes is "Facebook stalking." We've checked with our attorney's and have learned that its perfectly legal.  Anyway, an unnamed Comrex FB stalker...er...person stumbled across this lovely photo:

We weren't exactly sure what was going on in this photo.  Perhaps a nice Remote Gift Basket?  But wait!  It appears that there are trees in the background...several hundred feet below.

Well, naturally we needed to find out more.  After a bit of digging around, we sent a note to the owner of the Facebook page and received the following:

Please hang on tightly via the handy neoprene strap!

Dear Comrex,

I'm the news person at 610 WTVN who loves it when engineering lets me play with our toys, so I was quite blown away by your request and am VERY happy to help you. The Access is a fantastic piece of equipment.

The Giant Eagle is full of hot air.

We were invited to ride-along in a hot air balloon to help promote the Grove City Balloons and Tunes Festival near Columbus. When I got the assignment Thursday afternoon I ran straight to our engineering department and asked about doing a live shot from 2,000 feet up. It didn't take long for them to develop a plan and the first place they looked was the shelf with our Comrex Access on it. We'd tested it in the field a couple of times in the news department. The most recent use was a visit to a Columbus family's backyard by President Obama a couple of weeks ago. Our biggest concern was how the cell coverage would be in the air. We got up to about 2,500 feet and even over a rural area of Franklin County, Ohio we had decent cell service from AT&T. We had some droppouts, which we expected, but the unit did a great job, also as we expected. Thanks so much for making a GREAT product like the Comrex Access - so easy even a news person can use it!

Just a little corny.

I called our Chief Engineer, Greg Savoldi, to tell him about your request. He expects a new portable unit in exchange for the photos ;)

matt bruning

newstalk 610 wtvn
news reporter/anchor

Matt, thank you very much for the letter and the great photos!!  Greg, you're an old buddy of ours and we really like you.  But, come on!  We might be able to scrounge up a very nice ARC t-shirt for you and Matt.