FieldCast SMPTE PUW-FUW 150m Hybrid Fiber Cable

Behind each Lemo shell on this assembly sits a moulded gaiter. On a line that gets coiled by hand rather than wound onto a drum, that small piece of rubber earns its keep: the FieldCast SMPTE PUW-FUW 150m Hybrid Fiber Cable ships without a drum, so the last few centimetres of jacket before each connector absorb every twist a rigger puts into a figure-of-eight coil. The gaiter spreads that strain instead of letting it stack up at the collet — often the difference between three seasons of touring and a trip back for re-termination.

Both ends carry SMPTE 304 Lemo connectors from the 3K.93C.Y family: a straight FUW plug on one, a free PUW socket on the other. Sealing is IP68, the latch is push-pull, and a mated fibre pair costs around 0.10 dB with return loss better than 45 dB — numbers that weigh more than the run itself at this length. Power contacts are rated 10 A at up to 600 V, control contacts at 42 V, so camera supply and control ride inside the same shell as the pictures.

Under the abrasion-resistant sheath sits Furukawa TV-OM-AMS, grade A to SMPTE 311M. Two single mode 9/125 fibre cores run at 0.5 dB/km at 1310 nm. Six tinned copper conductors in HDPE — four for power, two for control — lie around a central galvanised steel strength member, the whole cable rated to 700 N of pull, with a tinned copper braid at 85 per cent coverage over the bundle. Paired with a Blackmagic Camera Fiber Converter and its studio counterpart, one line carries 2160p60 out, three HD returns back, talkback, tally, camera control and camera power over distances up to 2 km. A velodrome track centre, a pit lane at a circuit or an esports arena floor reaches the gallery on one cable.

It works from −20 °C to +75 °C, and its minimum bend radius is six times the jacket diameter — worth remembering as the coil goes back into its case at two in the morning. Without a drum, 150 m behaves like infrastructure: it drops into a cable tray, stays in a duct between a studio floor and its technical area, or travels flat in a case. The same build runs from short patch lengths up to 200 m, so a fleet can standardise on one connector scheme and hold spares that fit every position.