EMERGENCY BROADCASTS
EMERGENCY BROADCASTS
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About Emergency Broadcasts
<TOA's Efforts to Make the VM-2000 Series Amplifiers Conform to European Safety Standards>
European Standard EN60849 Paragraph 4.1 (General System Requirements) describes emergency broadcast
systems as follows:
a) When any alarm is detected, the system shall immediately disable any function not connected with its emergency role (such as
paging, music or general prerecorded announcements being broadcast to the loudspeaker zones requiring emergency broadcasts.
When emergency broadcasts are initiated from the Remote Microphone or from external equipment in the VM-Series system, all
functions other than automatic broadcast of 2 types of recorded messages (warning and evacuation announcements) and
manually initiated announcements from the Remote Microphone are disabled until emergency broadcast status is reset.
b) Unless damaged as a result of the emergency, the system shall be available for operation at all times.
VM-Series amplifiers are not equipped with switches to turn off the power supply of the entire system, making it possible to
instantly initiate emergency broadcasts at all times.
c) The system shall be capable of broadcasting within 10s after primary or secondary power is applied.
VM-Series amplifiers can commence emergency broadcasts in approximately 6 seconds.
d) Except during the condition described in 4.1c), the system shall be capable of broadcasting a first attention-drawing signal within 3s
of being placed in an emergency mode by the operator or automatically on receipt of a signal from a fire or other detection system.
VM-Series amplifiers are not equipped with switches to turn off the power supply of the entire system, making it possible to
instantly initiate emergency broadcasts at all times.
e) The system shall be capable to broadcast attention-drawing signals and speech messages to one or more areas simultaneously.
There shall be at least one appropriate attention-drawing signal alternating with one or more speech messages for this purpose.
VM-Series amplifiers are designed to provide emergency broadcasts of both an alert signal or an evacuation message
prerecorded on the EV-200 digital voice recording unit over the entire area.
f) At any time the system operator shall be able to receive, by means of a monitoring system, indications of the correct functioning or
otherwise of the relevant part of the emergency system.
VM-Series amplifiers feature built-in failure detection circuitry as standard equipment. This circuitry monitors system conditions in
conjunction with other failure detection circuitry supplied by the SV-200M. The outputs from these components enable the system
operator to confirm that the system is operating correctly at all times.
g) Failure of a single amplifier or loudspeaker circuit shall not result in total loss of coverage in the loudspeaker zone served.
If a VM amplifier should fail, it can be switched over to an external standby amplifier. VM-Series amplifiers are also equipped with
failure detection functions for individual output zones. If a short circuit failure hampering broadcasts to other zones is detected,
that shorted zone can be disconnected from the system, enabling broadcasts to other zones to continue.
h) An atten
tion
-drawing signal shall precede the first message for 4s to 10s. Successive signals and messages shall then continued
until either changed in accordance with the evacuation procedure, or manually silenced. The interval between successive
messages shall not exceed 30s and attention-drawing signals shall be broadcast whenever periods of silence might otherwise
exceed 10s.
VM-Series amplifiers can record 2 different types of emergency message using the EV-200 recording unit. It is possible to
separately record an alert tone and an emergency message and edit them. Since the emergency broadcast sequence can be
programmed, broadcasts that meet the requirements of the projects can be easily realized.
i) All messages shall be clear, short, unambiguous and as far as practicable, preplanned. Where prerecorded messages are used
they shall be held in a non-volatile form, preferably in a solid-state store, and be continuously monitored for availability. The system
design shall make it inherently impossible for an external source to corrupt or damage the store or its contents. NOTE - On grounds
of reliability, it is preferable not to use storage media depending on mechanical devices.
Since the VM system's emergency broadcast messages are recorded on compact flash memory cards in the VM amplifier, there
is no possibility of the contents becoming lost due to volatility. The availability of the recorded memory contents is constantly
monitored, and if a failure should occur, it can be indicated on either the amplifier or Remote Microphone, or a failure signal can
be output to connected external equipment. Since recordings are only made using external equipment (EV-350R), it is impossible
for the recorded contents to become damaged during operation.
j) The language(s) used shall be specified by the purchaser.
VM-Series amplifiers permit the user to record emergency broadcast messages in their own language. What is more, the Remote
Microphone's indication labels can be easily prepared in user-preferred local languages.
