Alaska School Turns To IR Lighting Technology For Surveillance System Upgrade

The latest IR lighting technology from Raytec is being installed at the Anchorage Christian School in Alaska as part of an upgrade to a 30-plus camera CCTV system.

As well as supporting an advanced IP video system, the Raymax 200 illuminators at the site have to withstand extreme weather conditions ranging from -30 to 60 degrees Celsius including snow, ice and polar winds.

The installer, Tecpro, was given the challenge of improving an analog CCTV system, which had been installed two years previously at the school but which was not delivering high enough image quality.

As part of the upgrade to a high definition digital system, Tecpro chose the Raytec units because of their outstanding performance and low maintenance requirement, states Raytec.

"Coupled with the best cameras, we needed to use the most rugged and high performing IR units too," said Scott Rees, Tecpro's project manager.

The illuminators now allow the system to capture crisp, clear images in low light external areas such as the parking lots -- which had previously been a common place for theft and vandalism.

"With the new CCTV system in place incidents have dropped to almost nothing," Rees said. "The Raytec illuminators have performed faultlessly, and now we're looking at installing more of them on the same site."

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