University of Sydney switches spectrums with Shure
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: With frequencies between 694-820MHz planned for the long-term evolution of Australia’s 4G data services, existing owners of wireless equipment have been tasked with making sure it will be compatible. One institution that this affects more than most is the University of Sydney, a huge user of RF devices in teaching and performance spaces. In partnership with Shure and integrator Rutledge AV, every single wireless microphone system on campus has been replaced.
‘For a university of our size, the government changes to frequency laws were a big deal,’ said Jason Wheatley, manager of Interactive Learning Services at the University of Sydney. ‘By the time you add all of the labour, it is a million dollar proposition. It’s a big investment, and one for which we carefully considered the options over a long period of time.’
In addition to replacing the existing systems, the integrators had to cater for the campus’ new buildings, including the newly-opened Charles Perkins Centre.
‘This was an opportunity and a challenge to test what was in the market,’ continued Mr Wheatley. ‘The new mics were going to have to live in a new and more crowded area of wireless spectrum. We wanted to have confidence that the equipment we chose had the flexibility to move to another area of spectrum if there was a problem, and had sufficient channels available to change things to get out of any trouble.’
The university ultimately invested in 340 channels of Shure ULX-D digital wireless systems. ‘We went with the ULX-D mainly because of its flexibility in the new RF environment,’ Mr Wheatley furthered. ‘We feel some aspects of the changes are still unknown, and our applications are mission critical in the larger spaces. We also wanted the networking features. They enable us to have monitoring capabilities and communications. It allows us to treat it like a proper enterprise fleet of equipment. We have a small team and a large university; wherever we can, we look for remote controlled systems rather than being dependent on going to a room to fix something.’
Before embarking on the purchase the university conducted an extensive evaluation and testing process. This reportedly highlighted the considerations that must be accommodated for the end-user, with some alternative systems tested proving unintuitive to operate.
‘It’s the simplicity of the design, how you turn the transmitters on and off,’ he clarified. ‘We have a variety of users, from students to professors, who may or may not be technically competent. We also like that you can take out flat rechargeable batteries and replace them with fresh alkaline batteries and keep the show on the road. We hadn’t gone with a rechargeable system before and we wanted a back-up plan in case someone had forgotten to place the transmitters back in the charger.’