London School Of Dentistry & Medicine

Date: 1st April 2005

Ampetronic induction loops are again at the forefront of science, this time of the medical variety, being at the heart of a multi-million pound development in east London.
 
Costing £43million, the London School of Medicine and Dentistry’s state of the art Institute of Cellumolecular Science houses major laboratories, offices, a lecture auditorium for 400-600 students and be ‘home’ to nearly 400 researchers at the cutting edge of medical research.
 
In order to comply with current legislation, the lecture auditorium required the provision of an induction loop system, with regular Ampetronic client ScanAudio the chosen installer. The chosen system comprised two overlapping arrays, which conforms to Ampetronic’s ultra-low-spill pattern, driven by two ILD9s and two SP5 base units.
 
The Ampetronic design had to fulfil two main criteria - firstly to meet the school’s specification of low cross talk and also being practical to install in the difficult environment of a lecture theatre.
 
The main challenge came from the shape of the venue itself. Because of the curved, rising layout of the seating, the copper tape for the induction loop had to be installed in a corresponding series of banana shaped curves. As the tape is supplied in a straight line on a reel, the system’s design had to ensure it did not require a bend radius that would be too difficult to achieve.
 
A further potential hazard was provided by the front edge of the seating rows being made of steel. “We had to be careful not to take the tape over the edge of the rows because of possible fraying,” says ScanAudio’s Dee Couchman. “Protective underlay was also installed between the copper tape and flooring, so long term damage wouldn’t be caused in high wear areas.”
 
The feed for the system comes from the lecture theatre’s main audio/visual system, including the microphones used by speakers and any recorded audio elements. This ensures that anyone using the system gets maximum benefit from the induction loop during presentations.
 
Five years in development, the new Institute is due to open in April 2005.