Viking 25AE Design Manual page 2

Planning a paging system ...................................................................................................2
Speaker Placement and Number of Speakers .......................................................................3-5
The Importance of Volume Controls ....................................................................................6
Feedback Elimination and Zoning .......................................................................................7
Typical Layouts and Materials Lists .....................................................................................8-11
Viking Paging Products .......................................................................................................12
The most common complaint we hear about paging
systems is that employees either can't hear their
page, or even if they can hear them they simply
can't understand them. Whether the situation
occurs in an office, manufacturing facility, or retail
environment, the result is almost always the same.
The paging employee has to make a series of repeat
pages, and that person's frustration becomes more
apparent with each additional page.
Poorly planned paging systems are inefficient, add
unnecessary employee stress, and worst of all,
result in lost sales. After all, whether the customer
is in a store waiting for the paged person, or on the
phone, they'll walk away or hang up if they don't
feel they're being attended to in a prompt fashion.
Planning an efficient paging system is not difficult.
You do not have to be an expert sound engineer
to spot potential trouble spots and come up with
solutions. But you do have to take the time to
analyze the project layout, predicting the most
likely ambient sound levels, and determining the
most likely paging patterns.
Once you have those characteristics in mind, you
can then determine the number and types of
speakers to use. In addition to calculating speaker
counts and placement locations, you should also
determine which areas require adjustable volume
controls, and whether those volume controls are
speaker or wall mounted.

Table of Contents
Planning a Paging System–
It's More Than a Bunch of Speakers
Next, you can calculate amplifier wattage needs.
There is no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all"
paging amplifier. For example, you may choose a
standard 30 watt amplifier to cover the majority of
the facility, but add extra amplifiers for noisy areas
such as factory production areas, warehouses, or
outside lots.
Before you settle on amplifier choices, make sure
you've properly considered zoning the system. It's
true that zoning adds cost to the system, but the
feedback we hear from our customers and installers
is that the cost is well worth it. Zoning minimizes
interruptions to business areas that have no need
to hear all pages. Imagine how distracting it is to
accounting personnel to hear every salesperson's
page.
Finally, make sure you consider the advantages of
feedback eliminators and page repeaters. Surveys
show that most paged parties miss their first page
simply because they weren't paying attention
until they heard a portion of their name. By that
time they have most likely missed which line they
are supposed to pick up, or where they are to
report to. With a page repeater in the system, the
paging party makes the page one time. The page
repeater records the page, time shifts it to eliminate
feedback, and then plays the page once or twice,
depending on programming. The result is more
prompt attention to pages.
VIKING