DNC Day 1

On Tuesday, the first official day of the convention, Norris and his three fellow COMLs had been split into two shifts.  Norris and one other COML were assigned to the 4pm to midnight shift and the other two were assigned to the 9am to 4 pm shift.  Since there was virtually nothing to do back at their "hotel" Tuesay morning, Norris and his partner headed on into the hard zone to get some lunch.  Just outside the hard zone, MSNBC had erected an outdoor set and was broadcasting live during the daytime hours when they weren't on the air from the convention center.  Here some unidentified talking heads were on stage as Norris walked by.  The monitor in the lower left shows what was going out over the air.

CNN had taken over a local Mexican restaurant for the week, turning it into the CNN Grill, where similar live broadcasts were occurring during non-prime time hours.  Supposedly the public was welcome to stop on in, have a bite, and watch the show, but every time Norris passed by, a large "INVITATION ONLY" sign was blocking the entrance.

Once inside the hard zone, some of the support infrastructure for the convention could be seen.  In this photo, an entire mobile hospital had been setup just outside the arena to serve the convention attendees.

The Charlotte Fire Dept had a large contingent of firemen working inside and outside the arena.  Here one of Charlotte's reserve fire engines has been pressed into convention service.  Known as the "Pink Lady," this engine was done up in breast cancer awareness colors in memory of Charlotte's first female firefighter, who died of breast cancer.  It usually only appears at special events, but was actually set up at the convention to provide extra water pressure to the firefighting standpipe system in the arena if needed.

After eating lunch and finding themselves with nothing else to do in the ghost town that was once downtown Charlotte, Norris and his partner decided to go on into the arena to await the start of their shift.  The team had been assigned space in the press box level of the arena.  Since they weren't "real" press, they got the worst seats in the press area, just behind the edge of the podium backdrop.  It really didn't matter since it provided plenty of space to set up their equipment.  On the edge of their area, they did have a good enough view of the convention floor to do their binocular scans looking for unauthorized transmitters.  The black curtain on the right side with the twinkling lights marked the edge of podium area.

Pictured below are some of the portable spectrum analyzers that were one of the main tools for spotting interfering transmitters.

This is a photo of the FCC engineers that were part of the team.  They wore suits, were very serious, and did not have to wear the goofy white hats as they didn't patrol the convention floor like the rest of the team.

As the convention didn't officially start until 5pm, most of the daytime floor activity consisted of networks continuing to set up their equipment.  Here some CNN technicians (the woman in the purple top and the man beside her in the black shirt whose face is blocked) are sitting in for the real CNN anchors that will use those chairs later in the evening.  The bored technicians sat motionless in those chairs for several hours while other technicians tweaked the lighting trying to get it just right.  This must be the most unexciting part of working in television.

While the TV networks were enjoying their access to the convention floor, several large areas in the hallways of the arena were set aside for talk radio shows.  They were jammed in pretty tight and were in the noisiest part of the hallways.  They might have been worse off than the bored CNN technicians.

The day shift of the white hat team spent most of their day at the entrances to the arena grabbing members of the lesser known media who weren't present for the check-in on Monday. All the available channels had been given out to the major media on Monday, so the lesser-knowns who arrived on other days had to be told that they would be restricted to wired microphones.  Their equipment was given yellow tags which meant they would be busted if they were caught transmitting inside the arena.  Here one of the day shift white hat team gives the bad news to a camera man, who is not pleased.

Once the convention kicked off at 5pm, most of the incoming media had already arrived and Norris' evening shift spent most of their time patrolling the floor trying to catch people using their yellow tagged equipment or up in the press box scanning the floor with binoculars.  Norris was patrolling on the convention floor when Michelle Obama gave her Day 1 speech and had an up-close view.

And so ended Day 1.