Crawfordsville Community Schools Gets Major System Upgrade for Improved Communications and Safety

Bogen Amplified > Crawfordsville Community Schools Gets Major System Upgrade for Improved Communications and Safety

Crawfordsville Community Schools Gets Major System Upgrade for Improved Communications and Safety

Case Study / White Paper | September 11, 2022

Crawfordsville High Scool

Crawfordsville Case Study Video

Challenge

When Fairchild Communications was called in to replace two of Crawfordsville Community Schools’ elementary school intercom systems, Fairchild knew that Bogen’s Nyquist E7000 solution would be the perfect fit. After considering a wide range of options, the Crawfordsville Community Schools Corporation’s Assistant Superintendent and Technology Director determined that Nyquist offered both the operational reliability and technological capabilities to keep CCSC’s facilities secure and informed.

Juggling several ongoing construction projects and operating under financial constraints, the Crawfordsville Community Schools Corporation ultimately elected to install Nyquist in two—and then four—of the six public schools in the Crawfordsville Community district. Bogen’s Nyquist delivered a cost-effective way to update the schools’ respective paging and intercom systems with a robust, reliable platform that would serve the schools’ administrative staff, teaching faculty, student population, and guests at school facilities. Some of the key benefits included:

•    Upgrade to an outdated announcement system
•    Budget friendly and robust
•    Reliable system installed that will stand the test of time

Solution

Installation began during the summer of 2019. Over a three-day period, Hoover and Nicholson elementary schools had their old systems’ central equipment completely removed, and the Bogen Nyquist E7000 solution installed. With only one day of full down time, things were up and running quickly again for Hoover and Nicholson Elementary. “It was fairly effortless,” Doug Lengerich, CCSC’s Technology Director shares. “The installer knew what he was doing, and it went smoothly.”

Crawfordsville Rack

In addition to the simple installation, the school’s administrative staff found that training on the Nyquist platform was quick and efficient. “Normally you can see the tension in people’s faces when they’re getting ready to be trained, and rather quickly they were able to see that the training, much like the installation, would be no problem at all,” Matthew Ranft, Director of Sales and Marketing at Fairchild Communications recalls.

Crawfordsville Admin Phone

The Crawfordsville Community School Corporation was so pleased with the results that they chose to install Nyquist in Crawfordsville High School the following summer. The high school installation was part of a larger, month-long renovation project updating the school’s facilities to serve the nearly 700 high school students in the Crawfordsville Community district.

Results

Nyquist helped to streamline all three schools’ intercom and paging systems, while putting in place a solution designed for both long-term reliability and ease of use. “The school appreciates that with their permission we can remotely access their systems for diagnostics and programming,” Ranft shares. “One of the main features the school principals and administrators were excited about was the simple way to adjust the bell schedule based on school schedule, to choose different bell schedules or even have them preprogrammed.”

Beyond bell schedules and the day-to-day needs of Crawfordsville Community Schools, Nyquist was able to improve student safety measures. “One of the things that we were able to do that wasn’t originally planned was to provide inputs to some of the existing large group area sound systems, for example, a gymnasium, so that emergency calls or tones could be heard even during loud events, adding yet another level of safety for our students and faculty,” Ranft shares.

In the fall of 2020, the district used remote learning as an opportunity to install Nyquist in its third and final elementary school, Hose Elementary. Having no previous history of buying Bogen systems, CCSC is now planning to install the Nyquist E7000 platform across all the primary, intermediate, and secondary schools in the Crawfordsville Community district.

“Bogen gave us the new tech that we were looking for,” Lengerich says. “We have a bit more security there knowing we have system in place that is reliable.”

“Bogen was a perfect fit for Crawfordsville,” Ranft explains. “Great enhancements to our technology, with minimal disruption to the schools, and the ability to use most of their existing infrastructure.”

Crawfordsville Connectivity

20 Year Strategic Partners for Fairchild and Bogen

Bogen has been Fairchild Communications’ product partner for twenty years. “We’ve enjoyed a good, close partnership over the years where we’ve had input on product development,” Ranft says. “We have direct connections with engineering and sales, and really see it as a true partnership, not just a dealer arrangement.” Fairchild values Bogen products for their durability, knowing that by the time Bogen brings a new product to market, it has been thoroughly vetted. Fairchild is excited about the Nyquist E7000 solution’s regular cadence of new software releases, meaning that the system is constantly being upgraded with new features and capabilities. “Bogen has given us something that we can win with,’ Ranft shares. “Bogen’s E7000 is a very forward-looking product path, but also a very graceful way to integrate legacy systems. There’s a bridge from the past to the future.”

NQ-E7030 Analog Station Bridge

The NQ-E7030 Analog Station Bridge (ASB) makes it easy and cost-effective for customers with legacy paging and intercom systems
to upgrade to E7000’S rich feature set and incredible control. The ASB allows the use of existing wiring infrastructure of Bogen
Multicom and Quantum installations, as well as similar analog or hybrid paging/intercom systems. Each ASB has 24 25V station/speaker ports and 120W of embedded power is shared across all 24 ports (max. 40W per port). Additionally, each ASB station supports both analog and digital call switches with multiple call-in priorities.

NQ-P0100 Matrix Mixer Pre-Amp

Bogen’s Nyquist networked 4-Channel Matrix Mixer Pre-Amplifier (MMPA) offers cost-effective performance for permanent installations and commercial sound and is designed to meet the rigorous requirements of today’s sophisticated sound systems. Developed with the commercial sound contractor in mind, the MMPA provides unparalleled flexibility and versatility without the need for add-on modules. It includes state-of-the-art, built-in DSP for extensive and comprehensive signal processing–allowing users to skillfully manage and mix multiple audio input channels. The resulting audio signal mix can be directed to the MMPA’s line out or streamed over the Nyquist network, where it can be used for audio distribution to one or more zones. The MMPA fits a wide range of commercial audio applications that require multi-zone paging and/or background music distribution at businesses, restaurants, retail stores, industrial facilities, and many other venues.

NQ-E7010 I/O Controller

The Nyquist I/O Controller appliance provides eight (8) dry contact closure inputs to monitor events/triggers from 3rd party systems/devices such as Fire Alarms, Lockdown buttons, and sensors. It also provides eight (8) open-collector type relay driver outputs used to initiate actions such as clock correction (e.g., generating sync pulses) on 3rd party systems and devices. The outputs can also be configured via the Nyquist system software to respond to contact closure inputs from the same I/O Controller or others associated with the same Nyquist system.

NQ-T1100 Administrative IP Phone w/Touch Display

The Bogen NQ-T1100 VoIP phone (by Yealink) offers a large 7” color touch screen that makes navigating Nyquist C4000 & E7000 System features and menus swift, easy and convenient. The NQ-T1100 employs Yealink’s Optima HD Voice technology and a wide-band codec for unparalleled audio clarity.

Key Products

NQ-E7000 Central Server / Software Suite
NQ-E7030 Analog Station Bridge
NQ-P0100 Matrix Mixer Pre-Amp
NQ-E7010 I/O Controller
NQ-T1100 Administrative IP Phone w/Touch Display