Clear-Com TEMPEST 2400 WIRELESS INTERCOM SYSTEM

Clear-Com TEMPEST 2400 WIRELESS INTERCOM SYSTEM

Clear-Com has been a leader in the theatrical intercom market for decades, and many churches that have a need for intercom systems have turned to the company for a solution. As the live video director at Raleigh, N.C.'s Hope Community Church, who uses intercoms every week, I jumped at the chance to give Clear-Com's latest entry in the wireless intercom arena, the Tempest, a try.

Tempest works in the 2.4 GHz frequency band, and each base station—when set to its Normal Mode—can support up to five wireless belt packs. It also has Shared and Split modes, where an unlimited number of listen-only users can be supported. It can interface to most two- and four-wire intercom systems supporting Clear-Com's, Telex's and RTS's communication protocols, and is available in two-channel and four-channel models.

Need more than five wireless belt packs? Up to 10 base stations can be connected together, providing up to 50 belt packs in use simultaneously. If you need more than 50 wireless intercom systems to pull off your worship service, you're not a church—you're a theme park.

It should be noted that the system does not include headsets, which are purchased separately. This makes sense, as there are numerous headset options available, and each user's may have different preferences.

Other features include a desktop PC application for monitoring and adjusting settings on the base stations remotely, full simultaneous duplex communications on all belt packs at once, and a fascinating feature that allows a belt-pack user to trigger a contact-closure relay at the base station, to interface with external equipment. I'm not quite sure what we'd use that for, but it sounds fascinating.