San Jose, CA-based Children’s Musical Theatre (CMT San Jose), a non-profit children’s theatre that specializes in training and educating youth through musical theatre, has upgraded its communication systems with a Clear-Com HME DX200 digital wireless intercom system, four BP200 wireless beltpacks and five HS15 headsets.
- The theatre, which is now in its 47th season, needed a reliable and secure communication system between stage managers and backstage crew. The theatre chose the HME DX200 system from Clear-Com, which ships with synthesized voice prompts, rechargeable batteries, a battery charger and rugged, lightweight COMMUNICATOR headsets. Digital encryption and frequency-hopping technologies keep unauthorized users from hearing the conversation.
“Reliable and quality communication is vital to our success,” said Josh Rose, production manager at the Children’s Musical Theatre San Jose. “Clear-Com was able to provide us with a way to improve the amount of communication that we had for our backstage crew by increasing the number of people on headsets. This has been a huge help in keeping our production and tech rehearsals moving forward safely and efficiently, creating not only a better product but a better experience for our young performers and their families.”
The HME DX200 digital wireless intercom system is designed for professional wireless communications and operates in the 2.4GHz ISM band, which is license free in North America. It is very flexible, allowing more people to be in direct communication, thus ensuring information is relayed quickly to keep CMT San Jose’s productions and rehearsals moving forward. The additional wireless units also enable the crew to be more mobile without losing the vital communication link.
The single or dual headsets provide separation from a noisy environment, and the noise reduction vastly improves communication. Users have the option of the HS15 single headset or the HS15D dual driver version. Up to 15 COMMUNICATORs can be assigned to each base station, any four of which can be used in hands-free, full-duplex mode, plus a fifth when the base station headset is used. The expandable system enables up to four base stations to be used together for a total of 60 COMMUNICATORs with up to 16 in full-duplex, single-channel mode.
“At CMT San Jose, we pride ourselves on not only educating our performers, but their families as well,” said Rose. “The efficiency and exposure to learning provided by the additional headsets enables us to have more people involved with all of the intricacies of our productions, giving them a better appreciation of what is taking place – and also lets us train our volunteers for future increased responsibilities.”
