PA Emergency Announcement System

At Lambda AV we love to show off our big, beautiful systems with lots of flashing lights and complications but what about the simple, smaller solutions?  We love to work on projects that are interesting challenges. Sometimes they are on a low budget, but these will still make a big impact to the organization when we implement them.  In this article we are going to dive into three different project solutions and see how we did it.
 
Our first simple solution project was a paging, emergency announcement system for a small school here in Colorado.  Aspen Valley Middle School, a small 5 classroom school in district twenty didn’t have an emergency announcement PA.  In the event of an emergency the front office needed a way to alert the entire building quickly and effectively. Being such a small school, they didn’t have the budget for a large scale bi-directional paging system.  Lambda answered the call! 

Knowing AV gear really well, as Lambda does, we were able to present a solution with a simple design.  Starting at the classroom and working back to the front desk we began with some of our favorite simple technology: the 70v speaker.  70v, or constant voltage speakers, allow us to place multiple speakers on one signal line daisy chained over a large distance.  We went to our favorite MSE Audio SoundTube ceiling speakers and installed one in every classroom, and throughout hallways and common areas. To drive the speakers we used a small form factor Stewart amplifier placed under the front desk.  For making announcements, we added a Shure MX412 desk mic.  The desk mic is versatile with mute/logic switch that added the possibility of using a RDL tone generator.  Each time the button is pressed on the mic the signal is un-muted and the tone generator is triggered causing an “attention tone”! This can then be followed by a message from the front desk for safety information.  Just like that, a simple day install with some reasonably priced gear, presents a solution to help protect students! 

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