Dongbu Kwangsung Church equipped with Shure ULX-D
Published: WORSHIP
SOUTH KOREA: Shure’s authorised Korean distributor Sama Sound recently recommended that Namyangju City’s Dongbu Kwangsung Church invest in Shure’s ULX-D digital wireless systems to support its various events, performances and services. Founded in June 1996, the church’s membership has since grown to 7,000, whilst the building itself contains a main 850-seat worship area, a youth worship space, a cafeteria and a childcare centre.
Given the changing RF landscape and the new 700MHz restrictions in Korea, Dongbu Kwangsung’s head engineer, JS Park selected the ULX-D systems – upgrading from the church’s pre-existing Shure SLX series. Mr Park stressed that the new wireless systems had to be able to provide a better performance and more flexibility for a variety of applications, including weekly worship and benefit performances, Christian contemporary music concerts and plays. Shure ULX-D systems were deemed to be the most appropriate solution, and 10 channels (including two quad-channel digital wireless receivers) were promptly installed into the main worship area.
Due to experiencing signal dropouts in the past, one of Mr Park’s main concerns was the RF performance. This is thought to have been caused by the 30m cable length that separates the receivers and the antennas, and the fact that end-users commonly keep the bodypack transmitters in their pockets during use.
This resulted in Sama Sound recommending ULX-D in the 470-698 MHz range, which provides a maximum 20mW RF of output power. Following a product demonstration, Mr Park was convinced that it was the right choice for the worship space, and it is reported that ‘not only has ULX-D solved the drop out problems, but the system’s functionality has taken him to an entirely new level as an engineer’.
‘Needless to say the strong RF performance gives me time to focus on other things,’ said Mr Park. ‘I haven’t had a single problem with ULX-D’s RF performance.’
ULX-D’s power management system has also impressed Mr Park, as in the past the audio team would ‘easily use’ 20 to 30 AA alkaline batteries after a full day of service. ‘I didn’t wait until the batteries were completely depleted because you can’t take any risk in the middle of worship,’ he explained. ‘After just a few hours, during a break in the sessions, I replaced them with new batteries and then wouldn’t throw away the partially-used old batteries as they could come in handy. However I couldn’t use the old batteries simply because I can’t take any chances at any time.
‘With the SBC battery management system, I don’t need to worry about either of those problems, so to anybody who wishes to purchase ULX-D, I strongly recommend the battery management system as a “must have” option,’ he added. ‘It seems like the team that designed ULX-D considered all aspects of sound engineering.’
‘This wireless microphone’s sound quality is simply awesome,’ commented lead vocalist, Grace Chun. ‘It is three times what I’ve been using! The clarity is unbeatable.’
The back-up singers were equally as enthusiastic about the ULX-D transmitter features, in particular the on/off switch. ‘We are not full-time singers so we use mute buttons quite a lot,’ commented vocalist Jenny Lee. ‘Muting the SLX transmitter was easy enough, but with the ULX-D, it is just effortless.’