Christchurch Council goes wireless...

Christchurch Council in Dorset will benefit from greater clarity and flexibility during meetings from this month, thanks to a fully integrated Clockaudio 16 channel wireless microphone system to be installed in the Council Chambers.

Designed and built by CIE-Group and installed by local AV integrator Presentation Media, the 40U rack features 14 x Clockaudio CW9000R UHF receivers, 2 x Clockaudio MR-88 Microphone Mixers, 14 x Clockaudio CU2 Wireless Microphone Base Chargers and 4 Clockaudio AA9000 Antenna Distributors.
The CW9000R receivers are paired with 14 of Clockaudio’s latest CW9005T UHF wireless desk base boundary microphones which provide a stylish, cable-free microphone solution for the whole of the Council Chambers, giving complete flexibility of microphone positioning appropriate to the differing usages of the room in each meeting.

CIE-Group’s Technical Support Engineer, Andy Short, explains the further flexibility designed in to the Clockaudio wireless rack;

“In specifying the system, flexibility, both now and in the future, will be key to user adoption and the success of the system. The CW9005 wireless desk bases have initially been set with all units having equal priority. However, the inclusion of Clockaudio’s MR-88 microphone mixers will allow the client to amend the individual levels of priority to specific microphones as required.

We’ve also managed to keep the number of antennas within the system to an absolute minimum thanks to the inclusion of the AA9000 antenna distributor, which allows us to use only 2 antennas for a 16 channel system.”

The Christchurch Council System also made full use of CIE-Group’s wider range of products from Inter-M, Amina and SigNET. Andy Short again;

“Though there are a relatively high number of wireless microphones in use, the Chambers themselves are quite a small area, which could have caused some feedback problems where ‘portable’ microphones are in such close proximity to the loudspeakers. However, we were able to specify NXT-based Amina sound panel loudspeakers, whose unique sound dispersion characteristics significantly reduce any feedback occurrence. The four Amina panels were linked to an Inter-M QD4480 4 channel amplifier, allowing individual level control of each loudspeaker.”

The Christchurch system also includes an Inter-M EQ2231 Graphic Equaliser, SigNET PDA500/2 induction loop amplifier and 2 x Chiayo handheld wireless ‘roaming microphones’ for public/audience participation.