People assume our summers are pretty chill considering the schools we work with are not in session. Well, this year, it was anything but chill! We worked 5 grueling weeks straight to install an advanced PA system in an auditorium.
At the urging of Emlen and Houston school principals, PCF has started to work with another K-8 school in Philadelphia’s Northwest: Roosevelt K-8 on East Washington Lane in Germantown.
We had worked with them before setting up computer labs, classroom computers, some electrical work, and conducting 3D printing classes. But when we met with principal Heifet at the end of the 2024 year, it came out that what they needed more than anything was an overhaul of their auditorium.
Roosevelt lacked a sound system forcing their school assemblies and neighborhood town halls to be split into smaller groups. Furthermore, the Rock-To-The-Future program conducts Summer and After-School music programs there but without amplification for their performances.
Roosevelt’s auditorium is a spectacular space with a balcony, screening room, and old relic equipment for the stage lighting and so forth. But it lacked a sound system forcing staff to use two powered speakers with one microphone each and unable to stream music at the same time. Roosevelt lacks a theater or music program of their own.
Well, thanks to a generous Mt. Airy donor, PCF was able to change all that in what we hope will be a transformative investment of time and resources at the school. PCF installed a state-of-the-art speaker system that is very easy to use and with convenient ways for staff to tap into. And we have laid the groundwork for a projection system that we hope to install there in the future.
Principal Heifet, Roosevelt staff, as well as the Rock To The Future program are all extremely happy with the setup. The school is contemplating hiring a music teacher there in hopes of doing school plays and more. PCF will continue to work with them closely to ensure the equipment is put the optimal use and to assist them with special events as needed.
I would urge you to view the videos at the bottom of this page for an overview of the system as well as a behind-the-scenes look (or below-the-scenes look, in this case).
Photos (scroll down for videos):
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- The view of the stage from the audience.
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- The view from the stage. Roughly 550 seats not counting the top balcony.
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- The under-balcony seating complicated everything since sound from the front does not travel there.
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- An overview of what PCF did.
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- The JBL 70J speakers that flank the stage are roughly 1,000W each.
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- The “fill” speakers that will cover the under-balcony area.
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- PCF friend Jerry helped with some of the electric including running a ground to this new’ish panel.
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- There is nothing like opening a box in hopes of tapping into existing stuff. We closed this box fast and ran our own!
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- A rats-nest on both sides of the wall.
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- PCF friend Rick Genzer helped with soldering the microphone and equipment plugs.
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- PCF’s Deruiter with headlamp needed to work in the dark basement.
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- Deruiter’s car started to look like a legit contractor’s trunk by the end of the summer.
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- To get power to the basement, we ran two 100-foot extension cords that we dropped down through a ventilation bell.
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- Some of the old wiring. Note the terra cotta walls between the heavy concrete pillars.
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- PCF ran 340 feet of metal tubing to contain our mic and speaker wires. We drilled multiple holes through the 8″ concrete floors.
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- A paper from 1971 with an article about a judge pleading for 10-cent bags of heroin and a school board vote being torpedoed. Unfortunately the mice had eaten enogh of the paper to make it difficult to decipher.
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- The software PCF used to determine the optimal placement of the main and fill speakers.
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- Because the room is so large, we have to delay the under-balcony speakers to prevent phasing/echo issues.
Walk Through of the System PCF Installed (video 3:44)
A short video (< 4 minutes) of the system we installed. Two sets of speakers, server rack full of equipment, 5 outlet boxes with microphone and sound equipment inputs.
Behind the Scenes (video 3:40)
A brief video of where we spent the most of the 2025 summer: the dark and probably asbestos ‘infested’ basement where we installed 340 feet of EMT (metal) tubing, ran 450 feet of speaker wire, 150 feet of microphone wire, plus power, and ground.
Adding Ground to the Electrical Panel (Video 0:42)
Even though the electrical panel near the stage was relatively new, it did not contain a “ground” wire. A ground wire is the third (round) prong on a power plug that is used to ‘shed’ extra/errand electric. Without it, PA speaker systems often suffer from buzzing sounds and our expensive equipment could easily break in case of shortages, etc.