Hearing Loop Systems recently announced a contract to loop Michigan State University's Breslin Center, all 14,759 seats. The stadium is the arena for one of America's top college basketball programs, as well as many other major events and concerts.
What is a Hearing (or Induction) Loop System?
Induction loops are used for transmission and reception of communication signals. Commonly, induction loops are used to provide assistance to hearing aid users. They are a loop of cable around a designated area, usually a room or a building, which generates a magnetic field picked up by a hearing aid. Many hearing aids are equipped with what is called a telecoil, or t-coil. When the user of hearing aids activates his/her telecoil in a place that has been "looped," the audio signal is transmitted directly into the user's hearing aids, giving them a direct connection to the sound. (The telecoil was originally named so, as it was first used to give hearing aid users a better way to use the telephone. The telecoil enabled hearing aid users to hear the phone conversation more clearly without also picking up background noise around them. From this, the natural development was to generate audio magnetic fields which the telecoil could receive.)
