Marge Gillies used to sit in her church and only hear bits and pieces of the sermon.
“You get so tired of asking people to speak up,” said Gillies sighed. “You really feel people don’t care.”
Gillies, a board member at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Main Street, was among many in the small congregation who was able to hear things loud and clear once a new audio system was installed that linked directly to her digitized hearing aid. Now she and church member Peter Diachun are leading a mission to hook up any and all public organizations that want to be wired for sound.
The inexpensive system, involving an “inductive loop,” of wiring and an amplifier, allows those with certain analog and digitized hearing aids to hear whatever is coming through a microphone. The sound goes directly into their hearing aids. (NOTE: Hearing aids need a special telecoil to get the signal broadcast on these systems. These coils are available in most modern hearing aids. Since so few buildings are equipped with the loops audiologists often turn these off to simplify the use of the hearing aid. The coils must be turned on by an audiologist to operate with the loop system. The aid’s control shows the “T” setting if it contains a telecoil.)
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“It’s as if whoever is speaking into the mike is speaking directly to me,” she said. The sound is pure, she added. There is no background noise.
Peter Diachun, who is leading the effort to share the innovation with the community, said he was skeptical when he first learned about the system.
“We tried it and to my astonishment we were getting a signal,” he said. “One of our parishioners was picking us up in her cochular implant. It was very emotional for me,” he said.
“It’s almost like magic in a way,” he added.
Now, Diachun and the church leaders are on a mission to hook others up.
“We want all public meetings to be looped in churches and any place that people can afford to put in an amplifier system,” Gillies said. “We are offering to go out and help anybody who wants to install this system.”
“We decided to sell it for free,” Diachun added, meaning that the church would provide installation assistance for free. “We would like to loop the whole city.”
The technology is readily available in Europe, Diachun said. “It’s a law there that every public building has the system installed and that every hearing aid has a switch,” he noted.
There is even a special universal symbol to let people know the sound system is installed and can be heard on digitized hearing aids. That symbol is posted on at the entrance of the church.
The church has already held one open house to show off the system and the session convinced church leaders of a Youngstown church who are now planning to install the system.
Mark Johnson of the First Presbyterian Church in Youngstown said the system is, expected to cost around $1,000, and will be installed when a new carpet is laid in the church in the coming weeks.
“Anytime you can make it more comfortable for more people to participate and actually hear and enjoy the service, that would be a main goal that we have,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that the system may posed two problems. “First, the hearing aids have to be digital,” he said. “The second is that there will be a learning curve with people who speak. They’ll have to understand that they need to use the microphone in order for the system to work.”
The Universalist Church is holding a second open house so more people can learn about the inductive loop system. For Peter Diachun, the effort is really a spiritual mission.
“What drives me is simple,” he said. “When I look out and I see people who first experience this and see the expression on their faces, and it does become emotional for me.”
Contact reporter Michele DeLuca
at 282-2311, ext. 2263.
Features
Related Photos
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Peter Diachun of the Unitarian Universalist Church, 639 Main St., Niagara Falls, tests a new wireless sound system at the church which allows a speaker's voice to be transmitted directly into certain hearing aids of hearing impaired listeners. DAN CAPPELLAZZO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPH
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CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Falls church is wired for sound.
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