PROJECT SCOPE
The events of 9-11 raised awareness about the value of fire drills and the importance of safely getting out of a building in an emergency. But as this American multinational financial services firm determined, evacuating the building is only the first step. OSHA and most Life Safety regulations require that businesses have evacuation plans guiding building occupants to safe locations away from the emergency. In this case, the financial firm found there were problems with providing up-to-date, intelligible information to their employees over large and noisy areas, such as street level meet-up spots and atriums. This challenge is common to institutions all over the country, including schools, hospitals, industrial settings, and other populated areas that may be subject to emergency evacuations.
PROJECT CHALLENGE
The communication system had to be wireless, portable, battery-operated, easy to set-up / disassemble, and able to communicate from various locations to multiple stations spaced up to a one mile apart distance all at one time.
AMPLIVOX SOLUTION
To meet the needs of the firm, AmpliVox adapted its Half-Mile Hailer to develop the Radio Hailer. The Radio Hailer is portable, battery-operated, and easyto set-up and use. AmpliVox recommended two solutions for the customer's need for long range communication. The first solution was to use an MURS 2-way transceiver radio which would not require a user license; the second solution was to use the customer's own 2-way radios which had a user license for use at their locations. Each solution was able to meet the one-mile distance communication requirement.
The customer chose to use their own 2-way radios that were set to a restricted digital talk group that from which only specified radio holders (management, fire/life safety, and others) could use and transmit.
Set-up included one master 2-way radio to use as the transmitter and another 2-way radio as a receiver at each position. This was connected via the headphone jack to the auxiliary input of the Radio Hailer amp, which receives the signal and then broadcasts the information from the speaker.
The customer established two separate talk groups at two sites: NYC and Jersey City. The Radio Hailer with attached radios was configured for both sites. In an extreme emergency, this allows them to link all the Radio Hailers together at both locations for an all-hands announcement.
This American multinational investment banking and securities firm now has a cost effective, reliable, portable, battery-operated long range emergency communication system ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
Customer Testimonial
After initial testing, the customer commented, "I'm happy to tell you that we ran a major test today at our assembly site in Jersey City, and the system performed well. We were able to cover a large area with intelligible speech. The system set-up and disassembly was very easy, and the portable cases work well. Our security managers believe it will be no problem to drill and train personnel to manage and operate the system. We are extremely happy that the Radio Hailer can be used individually or in combination with the radio links at various locations. We are currently training security personnel to be familiar with use of the Radio Hailers in all modes, from individual/over-the-shoulder to a fully synchronized multiple system."
For more information about the Radio Hailer and other AmpliVox Sound Systems emergency products, visit www.ampli.com/pdf/spec-radiohailer.pdf.
