Since the Virginia Tech tragedy colleges have been looking for emergency alert systems to increase the safety of their students. They need a way to instantly notify students of an impending danger.
Installing a wired notification system could cost 100’s of thousands of dollars and require trenching that tears up the campus and cutting holes in walls of the buildings.
There are also cell phone notification systems where all students are called on their cell phones. These work well as long as the cell phone is turned on, the battery isn’t dead from too much usage, and it is not in use during the time of the emergency. Also, professors usually require their students to turn off cell phones while in class and for large populations it can take a long time to call that many cell phones.
At IntercomsOnline.com we have various products that can be put together as an emergency mass notification system. These solutions are wireless which reduces the expense of installation and it eliminates the mess of trenching and cutting holes in walls.
Our MURS Wireless PA System can quickly and easily be placed around select locations of the campus. It consists of an emergency alert radio receiver that allows you to use a base station intercom or mobile 2-way radio to deliver voice messages directly to an attached PA speaker from up to 2 miles away.
You can also enable the MURS Wireless PA to receive local NOAA weather radio emergency broadcasts from the National Weather Service and play them over the loudspeaker. This will keep everyone aware of severe weather approaching. This feature
requires setting the unit to your local weather alert frequency.
If you have an application that doesn’t require a loud volume, the MURS Commercial Intercom may work for you. It has the capability of adding an external speaker that can be used to increase the volume of this base station intercom, especially if you add an amplified speaker. This intercom can be programmed for only one channel so students can’t change it. Not only can students hear emergency messages, they can use it to report dangerous situations. Or another option is to install the intercom above the ceiling and just run a wire to a speaker.
You can also place the MURS Callbox XT Outdoor Intercom in strategic locations so that students or staff can alert campus security staff of danger that they can then report over the emergency alert system.
If you want to transmit a prerecorded message, a transmitter device with a panic button is available. One push of a button will send the notice to everyone.
All these products work on the unlicensed MURS radio frequency, but they can also be programmed to work with any existing UHF or VHF radios you may have.
Using these products enables you to quickly set up a college emergency alert system faster than any other solution. All these products are available at http://www.intercomsonline.com.