Mt Lilydale College

Mt Lilydale College is a private school located in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs. The school campus is spread over quite a large area and the local geography is such that it is difficult to provide communications over the entire area. For some years now the School has operated its own two-way radio system for general communications, as well as providing a level of comfort for teachers on yard duty in this very big school population.

From the early stages of the radio system with just handheld radios in simplex format, the communications needs have grown to where a more formal communications method is required, plus the additional requirements of OH&S and the Emergency Evacuation systems meant the system needed an upgrade. The costs involved were such that this became a project implemented over two budget years to spread the costs and allow the school community to meet the underlying needs without compromise to the educational aims of the school.

AA radio were employed to advise on the project and there are now two repeater channels employed on the campus, one for general communications and the second as the Emergency channel. The location of the repeaters now means that there is full communications coverage from all points of the campus and beyond which is an important factor to the staff and school population.

With the addition of the radio system into the planning and procedures for the Emergency Evacuation system, it became evident that with a large number of radios it would be difficult to ensure that the radios for the Chief Warden and other key personnel would not inadvertently be taken away from the central assembly point and used for other functions. By thinking ‘outside the square’, AA Radio made arrangements for several of the new radios to be coloured bright red; this means that they cannot be mistaken for a normal radio – something that was very important for the client.

Now the Mt Lilydale College has a radio system that continues to grow to meet the needs of the college. They utilise their radios for school functions such as sports events and school drama productions, as well as the day to day functions within a very large school campus. And if there should ever be a major incident at the school, the School Emergency Management team will know that their radios are waiting ready for use, because being bright red, nobody else can sneak them away for other uses.