A recent technical upgrade at the King Jesus Church in Miami, Florida, take its existing Clear-Com Encore analogue party-line intercom system and add an Eclipse HX digital matrix system fitted with an E-IPA card, FreeSpeak II digital wireless transceivers and beltpacks, HelixNet digital partyline, LQ Series of IP interfaces and Agent-IC mobile app to support present needs and allow for expansion in the future.

The 20 years of ministry at King Jesus Church has seen attendance build to between 15,000 and 20,000 each week at both the main and campuses across five continents. As the church has grown, its production has encompassed broadcasting online to hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide, many of whom reside in Latin and South America. What sets this ministry apart from others is not only their Latin American roots with services spoken in Spanish, but also that they offer services in English and other languages.

With production crew now including camera operators, technical directors, a director, producer, audio engineers, graphics team, streaming coordinators and various production assistants working throughout the facility the church had outgrown its Encore partyline system.

Sean Sweeney from CP Communications worked with KJM Technical Director Jonathan Garcia on an upgraded intercom system that would satisfy these requirements: ‘Communicating on Sunday was becoming more and more difficult, when you have 25 plus different people, doing ten different things and all sharing a four-channel system... the idea of controlled chaos comes to mind,’ Garcia reports’

In order to make the chaos manageable, Sweeney and Garcia installed an Eclipse HX Median frame with 16 ports of 4-wire and 32 IP ports on the E-IPA card, four FreeSpeak II IP transceivers and 15 FreeSpeak II beltpacks, giving them the freedom to roam the building while staying online with the production crew.

Also installed was a HelixNet base station and LQ IP interface to support the FOH audio and lighting crews. To complete the new system, they also implemented several Agent-IC mobile app licenses with an external internet connection, enabling the production crew to roam outside the sanctuary as needed, all the while still on comms.

‘The way the new system configuration streamlined our operations and made Sunday service a breeze for all of us involved, is a total game changer,’ says Garcia, following the first Sunday service with the new system in place

While also producing in-person services, King Jesus Church produces and broadcasts services around the world. To help produce these global broadcasts, KJM has a broadcasting studio a few blocks away, which is connected to the main facility over a WAN network, allowing all communications to happen via HelixNet beltpacks. The studio control room is equipped with an Eclipse HX Delta frame, V-Series Iris panels, E-IPA card, Agent-IC, and FreeSpeak II beltpacks and transceivers. Sweeney and Garcia configured the system to provide highly scalable and reliable comms that bridge the two buildings and allows seamless broadcast and streaming production.

‘We now have a solid and flexible intercom system backbone for our communications that will be able to grow with us as we continue to expand our operations and broadcasting reach,’ Garcia concludes.

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