# Clearcom...running lights...summer maintenance



## dcollins (Jul 15, 2010)

So, my venue is in 'summer maintenance' mode. We have a total of one event between now and the end of august, so we're using this time to fix everything that we didn't have time to fix during the year. That's a little hard, what with our budget being frozen over the summer and all, but there's still plenty to do. 

Our booth, like most of our theater, was until recently a bunch of dead or dying pieces of equipment and a bunch of wires connected on at most one end. I say until recently because this past sunday one of my co-workers and I spent the afternoon pulling everything out. A few old VCRs, an old media server, a sound board large enough to take a nap on, and four old but working CRTs.

Anyway, now that we have access to the wiring, I decided to figure out how our clearcom system worked. We have a two-channel base station, with three XLR cables for each channel. One pair goes to the other wall station in the booth, and down to stage right, and I don't know where the others go - except that if I plug all 6 wires in, there two channels get bridged together somewhere, and I can't for the life of me find out where. So the solution to that is, for now, a piece of tape that says "Don't plug me in, I break the clearcom system".

I set up inputs and outputs to the sound system for the clearcom, giving the clearcom one of the aux outs that we use for the booth monitors, and giving it an input into the sound system. Now, as long as everything is turned on, the booth can talk into the PA system and the sound op can send audio into the clearcom as monitors. I also set the two channels as channel B = backstage speaker and makeup room, channel A = everything else. I wonder if that's the best method though - does anyone use a two or more channel intercom and do anything but party line it?

I also climbed under the audience seating area earlier this week (exit the front doors of the theater into the lobby, go up to the third floor and ask the mech eng department for access to the thermodynamics laboratory, walk downstairs to the basement, once there call campus police and ask them to unlock the door to under the house, wait for them to show up, promise you won't get lost or die, and voila! Simple!) to diagnose a problem with our aisle lights. Turns out a transformer was no good and needs replacing, so I guess that has to wait until we have money again. The balcony aisle lights are also broken, the problem here being that where there should be a switch to turn them on, there is not. So we need to fix that, as soon as we can get an electrician to stop by to cut the power for us. That'll be a good long while. The electrical panels aren't actually accessible by us, for some reason.


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## MLPucci (Sep 26, 2010)

dcollins said:


> I set up inputs and outputs to the sound system for the clearcom, giving the clearcom one of the aux outs that we use for the booth monitors, and giving it an input into the sound system. Now, as long as everything is turned on, the booth can talk into the PA system and the sound op can send audio into the clearcom as monitors. I also set the two channels as channel B = backstage speaker and makeup room, channel A = everything else. I wonder if that's the best method though - does anyone use a two or more channel intercom and do anything but party line it?



My default ClearCom setup at my high school consists of a two channel main station and a beltpack. I'll set that up for the drama, the Shakespeare, the talent show, and anything else simple where all we really need is a booth-backstage communication system.

When we do our musicals and the middle school's musicals, I rent 5 more beltpacks. The two backstage coms (SR and SL) are on channel A with the Lightboard Op and the Soundboard Op. The two spots and the prompter are on channel B, and I'm on the main station usually calling the show. This past year I've tried not to use partyline because the com tends to get too much useless talking. Although, the remote mic kill is a wonderful feature for that.


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## museav (Sep 27, 2010)

dcollins said:


> Turns out a transformer was no good and needs replacing, so I guess that has to wait until we have money again. The balcony aisle lights are also broken, the problem here being that where there should be a switch to turn them on, there is not. So we need to fix that, as soon as we can get an electrician to stop by to cut the power for us. That'll be a good long while.


Aisle lights are quite possibly a code requirement and not something that can be put off. Those may need to be addressed immediately, not doing so could end up costing you much more.


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