As church production gets more sophisticated, churches with outdated party-line intercom systems struggle to communicate with all their teams. And when that system is wired it can place even more limitations on communication. That was the situation for the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, Arkansas.
For the longest time, we’ve had a simple two-wire intercom party line system that we’ve used and has served us really well. But one of the main limitations of it has been that it’s a wired system. It doesn’t offer any wireless belt packs,” explains Nick Burt who is the director of communications at Rock Creek.
As part of a Church Production Road Test Experience, Pliant Technologies sent Burt the CrewCom Wireless Intercom System to try out. “The Pliant CrewCom intercom system was a great option for us to look into because it offered us exactly what we needed. Wireless intercoms for several of our positions that need to be mobile, but stay connected to the intercom system throughout the service,” says Burt.
The CrewCom system is a versatile communications solution built on a highly scalable platform in which a family of products utilizes a proprietary network. CrewCom is also available in multiple frequency bands (900MHz* and 2.4GHz) and is designed for overcoming communication challenges such as tough RF environments, inconsistent coverage, and total user limits.
Burt says setting it up was simple and a Pliant account manager guided him through the set up in about 30 minutes. “I even set it up on a Thursday and used it the following Sunday with no hiccups. The very first Sunday it was seamless. I mean, we were used to using an intercom system and now having it to where I could literally step out of the production room, go solve a problem, my video director can still talk to me. If I need to get ahold of the stage manager to fix something, I can just call him on the com system. That was a game changer and it felt so simplistic and seamless. It made the services run more smoothly.”
CrewCom features many options for channels or conferences to let users segment the intercom traffic and pick and choose who to talk to. “You could have video on a channel, sound on a channel, lighting on a channel, and then you could have a party line for everybody. So, if you wanted to have a staff channel or a staff profile and a volunteer profile, you could really segment those,” Burt says.
The CrewCom system even allowed Burt’s team to start using a wireless camera system they already had from a recent video overhaul, but weren’t using yet since they were still tethered to an XLR wire. And the system’s vibrate feature gave Burt some freedom he wasn’t expecting. “I could take my headset off between services, walk around, keep my belt pack on, and if somebody needed me, they could press the call button. My belt pack would vibrate alerting me that somebody was calling me. I could put my headset on and talk to them, and so I could still be connected without having to wear a headset just by a simple page from any comm system.”
Finally, the CrewCom systems have removable battery packs and a charging station that’s able to charge up to six belt packs and six additional batteries at one time. But Burt says they never needed to switch them out during services. “We never ran into that on a Sunday because the batteries worked for us about six hours each Sunday that we used them.”
Article written by Deidra Blackmore of Church Production Magazine. Click here to read the original article.
