# How are wireless microphone "bands" defined?



## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

From The Department of Stupid Questions: I'm finally forced to buy my own wireless microphones, and am wondering who assigns the band designations to groups of frequencies these devices use?

I ask because I have used the Audio Technica 3000 series, for which the manual refers to the reassigned 600 MHz frequencies as "Band D." The still-available 542-566 MHz frequencies are called "Band C" in that manual. However, the Samson Concert 99 system, which operates in that same 542-566 MHz range, is described on several seller's pages as a "D Band" device. Yet other vendors seem to use all kinds of odd names for their band plans (Galaxy Audio's "D Band" seems to run from 584 MHz to 602 MHz, and they have a different band called "P2," a name that no one else seems to use).

Are any of these band names official, as by FCC or a professional association? Or are they picked by the manufacturers? Where do they come from?


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## RonHebbard (May 7, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> From The Department of Stupid Questions: I'm finally forced to buy my own wireless microphones, and am wondering who assigns the band designations to groups of frequencies these devices use?
> 
> I ask because I have used the Audio Technica 3000 series, for which the manual refers to the reassigned 600 MHz frequencies as "Band D." The still-available 542-566 MHz frequencies are called "Band C" in that manual. However, the Samson Concert 99 system, which operates in that same 542-566 MHz range, is described on several seller's pages as a "D Band" device. Yet other vendors seem to use all kinds of odd names for their band plans (Galaxy Audio's "D Band" seems to run from 584 MHz to 602 MHz, and they have a different band called "P2," a name that no one else seems to use).
> 
> Are any of these band names official, as by FCC or a professional association? Or are they picked by the manufacturers? Where do they come from?


 *@Stevens R. Miller* Good to see you; let's employ Control Booths 'Bat Call' to garner some attention: * @FMEng @Ancient Engineer @MNicolai @TimMc* Care to comment? 
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## Jay Ashworth (May 7, 2019)

As far as *I'm* aware, they're manufacturer-defined.


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## Ancient Engineer (May 7, 2019)

Buckle up kids... its a bumpy ride...

A lot of wireless radio manufacturers use arbitrary letter designations rather than exact frequencies to define operating bands.

There are three basic standards in use since Marconi tapped out his first transcontinental messages. (On a giant 12' long telegraph key...)

1. IEEE - This is not the sound you make when you discover that the FCC has eliminated the band that your 40 wireless sets are using...
It is a basic standard that designates sections of the RF spectrum. It covers 3MHz to 300GHz and is mostly talked about above 8GHz for microwave bands: X, Ku, K, Ka, V etc.
Mostly used for R.A.D.A.R. and Microwave transmissions.

2. ITU - This is not a complex ballet maneuver...
This is what most (but not all) people are talking about when they say things like ELF, LF, HF, VHF, UHF, SHF, etc. It covers basically all of the "radio" spectrum: 3KHz - 3THz.
Nine equally spaced bands. Reasonably logical. Purt' neer' used everywhere.

3. EU, NATO, US ECM - You'd think this one was the most agreed upon and sensible one of the bunch. You'd be wrong. Abandoned almost everywhere by everyone.
It changed from letters I through W to A through M. Almost nobody noticed...
It covers 1Hz (yup, below the "audio" spectrum) to 100GHz.

You will notice that the letters used by wireless mic manufacturers just don't line up with anything anyone agrees upon.

Fortunately for us the interwebs provide a nice chart to compare them with: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Frq_Band_Comparison.png

Most importantly, there are NO stupid questions!!!!!!!!


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## TimMc (May 7, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> From The Department of Stupid Questions: I'm finally forced to buy my own wireless microphones, and am wondering who assigns the band designations to groups of frequencies these devices use?
> 
> I ask because I have used the Audio Technica 3000 series, for which the manual refers to the reassigned 600 MHz frequencies as "Band D." The still-available 542-566 MHz frequencies are called "Band C" in that manual. However, the Samson Concert 99 system, which operates in that same 542-566 MHz range, is described on several seller's pages as a "D Band" device. Yet other vendors seem to use all kinds of odd names for their band plans (Galaxy Audio's "D Band" seems to run from 584 MHz to 602 MHz, and they have a different band called "P2," a name that no one else seems to use).
> 
> Are any of these band names official, as by FCC or a professional association? Or are they picked by the manufacturers? Where do they come from?



They are arbitrary designations to serve the needs of the manufacturers.


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## FMEng (May 7, 2019)

You forgot the NTIA. The manufacturers make up the bands and name them as they see fit. It must make sense to them.


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## Scarrgo (May 7, 2019)

Very cool information.....


Ancient Engineer said:


> Most importantly, there are NO stupid questions!!!!!!!!



You must have not talked to my wife or children than.....

But I agree....

Sean...


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

Sweetwater's customer support agrees:

"So the bands for wireless are named different for every company they all use their own code for it."

What a missed opportunity to avoid confusion! (But thanks for making this clear to me.)

Looking at Samson Concert 99 systems. Some vendors have them on sale for about $180, full set. I am often advised not to skimp on gear, but my experiences with low-price, other than "name" products has been pretty consistent: keep a spare on the shelf and maintain an aggressive maintenance schedule, and a lot of it works as well as the expensive stuff. When it comes to wireless microphones, almost every batch I've used has forced me to deal with scratchy connections, 90% of which were where the cord meets the pack. The rental places do, as far as I can tell, no maintenance on them. I end up taking them home and doing my best to clean the crud out in time for the first show. Sometimes, an entire pack will die on me, again for lack of maintenance. I've opened up more than one, only to find solid chunks of salt inside. Big ones. (And that's icky.)

We will be taking very tender care of whichever ones we buy, I can promise that. Just wanted to make sure that the low price wasn't because I'm buying a system that uses a soon-to-be banned band.


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## TimMc (May 7, 2019)

Hi Stevens-

The question is "to meet this price point, what design compromises were made and what features had to be sacrificed?" It's knowing what you're not getting, and the relative importance (or lack thereof) of each of those things.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Hi Stevens-
> 
> The question is "to meet this price point, what design compromises were made and what features had to be sacrificed?" It's knowing what you're not getting, and the relative importance (or lack thereof) of each of those things.


I think that's a very accurate metric for predicting bang-for-the-buck, Tim. As an amateur techie working on amateur productions, one thing I've noticed is that, however much we all think we'd love to get some whiz-bang gizmo with lots of high-end attributes, the truth is most of us don't have the time to master that stuff. As a result, the complications introduced by the "best" equipment tend to make it hard for us to put it to use in our oh-so-basic context. For me, as a techie, it can be very, very frustrating to watch a company's "alpha geek" (you know, that guy who is just always the one who takes charge of everything with current flowing through it because, well, he's just that guy) push buttons at random, keeping a dead-pan face, as he tries not to let it show that he has no idea what he's doing (and, for whatever reason, refuses all suggestions that, hey, maybe we ought to find the manual on this thing?). I _always_ get the book, read the book, and operate gear by the book. But, for even that to succeed, _it has to be a short book_! No time to plow through thick manuals.

So, if low price means fewer features, that's a good thing from my perspective: less to learn, less to forget, less to relearn again and again. If it means lower reliability, we keep a spare on-hand. If it means more fragility, we keep a lot of duct tape in the booth and I don't mind putting in time on the bench repairing broken stuff. So far, that program is working out for me (and I learn a lot at that repair bench, too ).


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## Aaron Becker (May 7, 2019)

In my experience, wireless microphones is something where lower cost generally also means lower performance. I don't have any stats or metrics to back this up, but I've used some pretty low-level wireless mics and you can tell. You can probably get away with a cheaper mic cable most of the time, cheaper analog crossover or compressor, and you won't notice many performance issues. The cheaper wireless microphones - almost always gave me headaches. I would strongly encourage you to evaluate your situation and unless you *need* to buy wireless, rent. Buying wireless mics is like buying a car or boat - they lose half their value once you take it home. 

When I started in the industry I made the mistake of sinking 1000s into wireless equipment - only to use it a few times and now it collects dust because it's not usable. The wireless equipment devalues faster than a lot of other stuff in the industry. I'm not trying to be a negative sour guy here, but just give some serious consideration to if you "need" to buy wireless.


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## TimMc (May 7, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> I think that's a very accurate metric for predicting bang-for-the-buck, Tim. As an amateur techie working on amateur productions, one thing I've noticed is that, however much we all think we'd love to get some whiz-bang gizmo with lots of high-end attributes, the truth is most of us don't have the time to master that stuff. As a result, the complications introduced by the "best" equipment tend to make it hard for us to put it to use in our oh-so-basic context. For me, as a techie, it can be very, very frustrating to watch a company's "alpha geek" (you know, that guy who is just always the one who takes charge of everything with current flowing through it because, well, he's just that guy) push buttons at random, keeping a dead-pan face, as he tries not to let it show that he has no idea what he's doing (and, for whatever reason, refuses all suggestions that, hey, maybe we ought to find the manual on this thing?). I _always_ get the book, read the book, and operate gear by the book. But, for even that to succeed, _it has to be a short book_! No time to plow through thick manuals.
> 
> So, if low price means fewer features, that's a good thing from my perspective: less to learn, less to forget, less to relearn again and again. If it means lower reliability, we keep a spare on-hand. If it means more fragility, we keep a lot of duct tape in the booth and I don't mind putting in time on the bench repairing broken stuff. So far, that program is working out for me (and I learn a lot at that repair bench, too ).



I'm thinking more along the lines of audio quality. Youth and community theatre typically gets lousy gear because the budget ain't there and my hope is that if at all possible, you audition the available choices in your price range, first with tiny little kid voice and then a newly minted baritone shouter. What does the noise floor sound like for the little kid? How easily does the transmitter overload with the shouter? Is some form of useful gain compensation available on the transmitter? What about the mic elements themselves? Any odd frequency response (unusual feedback) issues?

Here's the reason - the better the audio path is to start with, the easier the down-stream work will be. It's easier to EQ, it's easier to mix, it's easier for parents to pick out Their Darling Monster® in the cacophony. Hearing for yourself is the best thing you can bring to the selection process.

As for your earlier comment about hope to avoid purchases in spectrum that is soon to be reassigned, you can kind of relax. First, not all of the 600 mHz spectrum was sold at auction and the next grab for spectrum is likely to start where it left off before moving down in the UHF band; the new (and not yet built) 5G mobile device systems use substantially different (higher) frequencies than our current wireless mic systems. No guarantees, sorry, but it looks to be stable for 5 years or so.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

Aaron Becker said:


> I would strongly encourage you to evaluate your situation and unless you *need* to buy wireless, rent.



If I can possibly avoid it, I will never rent a wireless microphone again. See above. The local providers (I'm in northern Virginia) do no maintenance and some have billed me for providing replacement units when their own gear arrived DOA. Nearly all the problems I have had have been at the micro-XLR connector on the pack. They are often corroded, loose, bent. Owing to rental schedules, I frequently don't get access to them until the first day of tech week, with no time to repair or clean them up before rehearsal starts. We use all the usual tricks: spray antioxidant in them (short-term fixes it, long-term makes it worse), wrap the connector in thin paper, bend the connector this way and that until you find a position that works and then duct-tape it for all you are worth, bend the pins with needlenose pliers (and hope the pins don't break). The problems that have not been due to the connector have all been due to sweat crystallizing into salt in the pack (yuck), or bad microphone cables (which I suspect is due to harsh treatment by other renters).

When it comes to the electronics equipment I have used for local theater, there have been two kinds: what I own, and what I don't own. These two kinds are also known by their aliases: what works and what doesn't work. Gonna find out, finally, if that applies to wireless microphones.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

TimMc said:


> I'm thinking more along the lines of audio quality.



Good point and your analysis of all the links in the chain (and how they can affect quality) is spot-on. Here again, however, is another example of what happens when (for any number of reasons) I have to zip my lip and watch other people guess their way through the gear. For example, if the element is too close to the actor, or the pack attenuator is set too low, you get distortion there, before the signal even leaves the transmitter. Easy to see at the receiver if it has an audio level meter (you see it pegging). But, not so easy to see at the mixer, which is where the operator tends to be (while the receiver might be in the wings). When you hear it, you can fix it, if you know it for what it is. A lot of my colleagues will "fix" it by simply sliding their faders down on the mixer (or turning that knob at the top of the strip whose function they sort of know). Sometimes the "fix" is to ask the actor to change their own amplitude, which can work pretty well if the actor will do it.

Now, when the signal into, and out of, the mixer is actually pretty good, where does it go? In the middle schools where I do a lot of my work, it goes into the middle school's rack, wherein lives an amplifier that is also not maintained, which feeds speakers over which I have no control, and so on. This means hum, hiss, distortion, and every other audio demon you ever met. My point being that, even if my system uses God's Microphone, my audio will still end up sounding like that Close-'n-Play some of us had as kids.

Someday, when this company we have started grows, and we have more money, of course I will advocate for the best gear we can get, including our own amps, speakers, and so on. Until then, we have to make some compromises. Those that can be at least partially addressed at the equalizer will be included.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

Quick point before I come off as overly sour: some of the techies I have worked with have really known their stuff. I've learned a lot from working with them. But there are a lot who don't know their stuff. In its own way, I've learned a lot from working with them, too.


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## Aaron Becker (May 7, 2019)

Unfortunately, your rental houses sound like they're subpar compared to what I've experienced in my region. Is there something more towards the DC metro area you might be able to find, even if it's a little more of a drive/cost to acquire that might be more professionally suited? I understand your statement about things you own / things you don't own - but a good rental house should be providing gear that works better than something that's collects dust 10 out of the 12 months in the year. If the rental house you're going through isn't providing you with working equipment - they shouldn't be getting paid. (see side story below.) I believe the vast majority of broadway shows I've seen on tour have been using long-term leased/rented equipment - not their own. They don't buy it for the same reason you shouldn't - when it becomes illegal to use or stops working, you bring it back to the rental house and it's their problem. The rental houses get to "eat" the cost of the new equipment when they need it- and they've probably long paid off their systems by the time they have to replace them. The same concept should apply to gear you own. If you can't "pay off" the cost of buying the systems so when they become obsolete for whatever reason you aren't in the hole, you really shouldn't be buying. I really get the joy of owning your own wireless, but just be prepared for disappointment if you don't do it right the first time. An old antidote I learned from one of my mentors years ago - there's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. I firmly believe this applies to cheap vs expensive wireless as well.

Side story about rental houses:
Many years ago I was the sound designer on a large show for a school. We had a failing wireless system in the house - and had been renting for several years as a result. We rented 24 systems from a reputable rental house in town - but my placement of the receivers combined with their non-directional stock antennas provided by the rental house made opening weekend an almost complete blowout due to dropouts and RF issues. I assume a room full of interference (audience) didn't help either. By the third night I "borrowed" some paddle antennas from another facility I had access to and saved the 3rd of 6 shows. (Had I not done this, I probably would've been fired from the show.) All the issues immediately ceased. 

I called the rental house on the next Monday and asked for them to provide me some paddles (since the ones I had acquired for one day were not available for the second weekend of shows). They asked if they could come out to the site and see if they could identify a problem with my setup, since they promised it should've worked as sent. At first they tried to blame my frequency coordination, but I explained that their initial coordination did not account for my IEM systems, house listening assist, wireless intercoms, etc. They conceded and provided me with paddles free of charge for the rest of my shows, and added to our account that we always got paddles at no additional cost for our shows. Needless to say, the rest of the shows went off without a hitch. This rental house also provided a plethora of spares whenever I needed to, and I usually on a weekly basis had to replace my "care package" between shows/tech week because after all, it was heavily used gear. 

If your rental house isn't willing to do this for you (or give you a refund)- find a new rental house, period. I'm not saying rentals are hassle-free, but at the end of the run, you get to turn the stuff in and you don't have to keep the problems, and you aren't in the hole.

PS - I get the impression as a future resident of NOVA that I need to capitalize on the apparent lack of good rental houses in the region...


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 7, 2019)

Aaron Becker said:


> Unfortunately, your rental houses sound like they're subpar compared to what I've experienced in my region.



This is clearly one of those things that varies quite widely from person to person, place to place. People here on CB have mostly (not all!) told me that my experiences are typical. The rental places are very competitive and don't have the time/staff to do proper maintenance. For a long-term rental, like the broadway traveling shows you mentioned, the math might work out differently. But my company does two or three shows a year. The cost of rentals for three weeks each made the cost of owning start to look very attractive, even before you factor in the poor quality of rental gear.

As for paddles: you probably know those are simple log-periodic antennas. Pretty easy to make (I've done it, but for ham radio use, not theater). Once we own our own stuff, fabricating that sort of thing (along with housing, power distro, and other things) also starts to look more attractive. When you mix in your own homemade gear with rental stuff, you have to hide the fact that you did so, or else the rental company blames you for whatever was already wrong with their gear (and bills you for it).


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## josh88 (May 8, 2019)

All the rental places I have worked for and rented from make the time to maintain stuff, but thats how they keep me coming back. I've used enough beat up gear to know who to ignore and never go back to. Easier said than done in some markets. I don't mind cheaper stuff a lot of the time, but with wireless mics I really prefer to pay more 1 time rather than constantly have to repair stuff. Sure, elements should be viewed as expendables, but with proper care they'll last just fine. But dealing with school groups and amateurs, the lower tier packs all seem to be plastic pieces of junk. Then you move up to the more substantial plastic or plastic/metal combo packs, and then you get to the higher tiers where the whole back is metal. I've had kids doing a roll or whatever choreography, smash those cheaper packs, or rip the antennas off, which on the lower end, tend mean replacing the whole pack is easier. OR you could take the pain and buy the better stuff and enjoy a metal pack that can take a beating and keep ticking. 

I didn't notice as much until I started working with nicer stuff, but with the same amount of care, the repairs/troubleshooting/problems all declined, with with an increase in reliability. /2cents


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## TheaterEd (May 8, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> Quick point before I come off as overly sour: some of the techies I have worked with have really known their stuff. I've learned a lot from working with them. But there are a lot who don't know their stuff. In its own way, I've learned a lot from working with them, too.



Lol. Don't worry. We ALL know the people you are referring to. The ones that are willing to learn new things, I teach, the ones that are not I avoid. It seems to me like this happens when techs only work in one space or with one group for WAY too long. One of the reasons why I try to grab gigs at as many different places as I can. That, and I always surprised by the amount of cables that get abandoned in the rafters of community theaters!

I feel like the most important quality for a person in this industry is the ability / willingness to learn new ways of solving old problems.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

josh88 said:


> All the rental places I have worked for and rented from make the time to maintain stuff, but thats how they keep me coming back. I've used enough beat up gear to know who to ignore and never go back to. Easier said than done in some markets.



Please PM me with the name of your employers. The ones I have used do vary, but all send me stuff I have to clean up on my own.


> I don't mind cheaper stuff a lot of the time, but with wireless mics I really prefer to pay more 1 time rather than constantly have to repair stuff.



The reason I love Control Booth is that knowledgeable people--many of them serious professionals--volunteer huge amounts of good advice, just for the asking. The one piece of advice I can never take, however, is, "Spend more than you have." My colleagues and I are operating on hope, prayers, and pocket change. But, what we lack in money, we make up for with labor, so we buy cheap stuff and fix it when it breaks. No other real option.


> But dealing with school groups and amateurs, the lower tier packs all seem to be plastic pieces of junk. Then you move up to the more substantial plastic or plastic/metal combo packs, and then you get to the higher tiers where the whole back is metal. I've had kids doing a roll or whatever choreography, smash those cheaper packs, or rip the antennas off, which on the lower end, tend mean replacing the whole pack is easier. OR you could take the pain and buy the better stuff and enjoy a metal pack that can take a beating and keep ticking.



Gracious, what are your kids doing? Tributes to "Cirque du Soleil?" We have no problems with people rolling over the gear or pulling on things. I specifically train our actors, of all ages, to pull only on connectors (if they have to pull at all), never to touch a button, and never put stress on anything. Maybe because I deal with amateurs, who tend to know how strapped we are for cash and that even having a piece of gear can be extraordinary, they respect my instructions to be careful. Consequently, metal or plastic makes no difference to me. My problems are almost never at the pack itself. They are almost always at the cable connection point, where corrosion and mechanical slop make for intermittent connections.


> I didn't notice as much until I started working with nicer stuff, but with the same amount of care, the repairs/troubleshooting/problems all declined, with with an increase in reliability. /2cents



What stuff are you working with? The rental places I've used have sent me a wide variety of makes, including Shure, Audio Technica, and (rarely) Sennheiser. Though the list prices for those products can vary by factors of two to three, all have performed virtually identically. (This is not surprising. Consumer Reports has published on this repeatedly, over the years. People will simply pay more for a name they know, regardless of whether or not there is any difference in quality. Best example is batteries: in bench tests, all AA cells you can legally buy discharge along almost identical curves for all practical loads, but you can pay literally 100% more for a famous brand as for a cut-rate cell.)

Now, as an earlier commenter mentioned, differences do exist. Audio quality can be one of them. In my venues, however, high sound quality in the microphone system is kind of wasted, because my sounds all go through middle school sound systems that can make a sine wave sound like a duck call.

I haven't been doing community theater all that long. Started in early 2016, just before I joined Control Booth. I've done about 14(?) shows since then. What I've observed is that, in the hands of amateurs, mostly performing in public school auditoriums, expensive stuff and cheap stuff behave about the same. I've also observed that, when you do _not_ know what you are doing, admitting that to yourself, reading the manual, asking for help, and taking the time to learn what you need to know can also make expensive stuff and cheap stuff behave about the same, and _pretty well_, at least for the purposes we amateurs in public schools have. (I suddenly wonder if the rental places give us their lesser gear, saving the best equipment for more professional customers with bigger budgets. They do know who we are, after all.)

Anyway, we have ordered a few Samson Concert 99 Earset systems. Will post a review after we have them on the bench (and the yard, as my director is going to wear one while mowing his lawn; we amateurs have to find inventive ways to do our tests, while not neglecting household chores).


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

TheaterEd said:


> Lol. Don't worry. We ALL know the people you are referring to. The ones that are willing to learn new things, I teach, the ones that are not I avoid. It seems to me like this happens when techs only work in one space or with one group for WAY too long.


I never thought about it, but you're right. A company, or even an informal group, tends to adopt an alpha for each of its operating departments, and those people sometimes (not always) become defensive about their turf. Alpha techies seem to come in two forms: those who will read a manual, and those who won't. The former can be a joy to work with, as they love to acquire new knowledge and skills they can bring to a production. The latter can be maddening, as they not only miss the chance to make full use of their equipment, they also tend to resist input from anyone who might look up what they don't already know.

But hey, life's like that. You deal with it.


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## EdSavoie (May 8, 2019)

I will say this for Samson gear, my old highschool purchased a Samson XP1000 to use for events outside of the theatre, around the same time, they purchased a pair of Behringer EPQ2000s from a seperate local dealer.

In the course of three years, both of the Behringer EPQ2000s failed, while the XP1000 soldiers on despite having a much tougher service life, despite being constantly driven much closer to it's maximum rating than the Behringer amps ever were given that it's got half (500W vs 1000W) at 4 Ohms.

I should mention that the second EPQ2000 somehow leaked enough power out of it's 1/4" input to brightly illuminate the automotive lamp used as driver protection in one of our speakers when a technician reaching around the unit accidentally plugged the speaker into the 1/4" input instead of the output. It was brief enough the speaker managed to come out unscathed though...

Oh right, after the second of the amps failed, the Samson unit started pulling double duty and became the emergency amplifier for the theatre's audio system.

Curiously, it still works perfectly fine.
Also curiously, the dealer forgot to mention that Behringer had discontinued these units during the process of "recommending" the pair of them over the similarly priced and specced amplifiers that replaced them in the product stack.

I'm not bitter or anything...


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## EdSavoie (May 8, 2019)

That reminds me, I've had terrible luck with Behringer amplifiers in general, at least their old designs anyway.

For the most recent show at my college, i had wired up program sound from a microphone a colleague had mounted in the makeshift blackbox theatre (It used to be a TV broadcast studio before their program shut down and ours began) and so i grabbed a Behringer powered studio monitor (Truth series) and fed it on a feed out from our mixer. For some reason, the power supply failed a few days into our run. I swapped out the monitor for It's matched unit, but it too failed a few days later. Baffled, I wondered if if was being fed garbage power, but it was the exact same source as the mixer and the rack mount containing our gates, EQs, and compressors.

After questioning my sanity to make sure I wasn't doing something incorrectly that could cause them to fail, it was replaced with a powered studio monitor from a different company, (Yorkville if I'm not mistaken?) that monitor worked perfectly for the rest of the run without any issues.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

EdSavoie said:


> I will say this for Samson gear, my old highschool purchased a Samson XP1000 to use for events outside of the theatre, around the same time, they purchased a pair of Behringer EPQ2000s from a seperate local dealer.
> 
> In the course of three years, both of the Behringer EPQ2000s failed, while the XP1000 soldiers on...



I think every field with multiple vendors eventually generates stories of success and of failure for each of them. I'm no _laissez faire_ capitalist but one thing the free market does pretty well when there is real competition is weed out the real bad ones. Samson opened for business in 1980, and their first product was a wireless microphone. If they were constantly selling nothing but junk, they'd be long gone by now.

Also in every field, I've noticed that "low end" equipment can generally be made to do the job you need, if you can give it the TLC required. Not everyone is willing to do that. I just did a show recently in a theater with a very high-end Comcast wireless intercom. Amazing system! Crystal clear audio, batteries lasted forever, good range. No problems of any kind. And, like a lot of Comcast gear, the body packs were engineered to withstand a direct nuclear strike. I've certainly seen crew on some shows that were close to the equivalent of that: dropping the packs, yanking on the cables, bumping into them with mallets, and so on. Of course, you could buy a Tesla Model 3 for the cost of ten sets. But, if you have a harsh environment, nothing else will survive.

For whatever reason, my colleagues and the actors we work with just seem to get it when we tell them, "Treat this gently, okay?"


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## TimMc (May 8, 2019)

Comcast? The cable TV sloth/giant? Or ClearCom?


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Comcast? The cable TV sloth/giant? Or ClearCom?


Oh, my. Yes, ClearCom. Sheesh. FreeSpeak II system. Can't say enough good things about it. It's here.


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## NickVon (May 8, 2019)

I hope the Samson Concert stuff works well for you. And We'd all love a little of your review of your expereince with it on this forum!

To your sub post about inexpensive and vs premium gear.:
I work full time at a college arts center that operates as rental venue. I work with lots of groups through out the year, and also freelance on the side. So I have a small sole proprioteryship type bussiness and own a little bit of my own gear. Enought that I can keep it stashed in a corner of my office at the theater. In addition to a console and some powered speakers I've picked up a number of wireless systems.

I started by piecing together ebay sales to put together a system of 4 Sennehesier EW100's(Gen 1/Gen 2 stuff) about 5 years ago. I then increased it with 6 more (gen 3) used system purchased from a fellow CB board member. Bought 4 more new of the EW100's (gen 3). And just in the last 6 months invested in a JTS R4 system, which I've been very happy with.

I initially got in to owning wireless mics simply for my own sanity and time. I frequently was going to venues where they maybe had 8 but really needed 12. or had 12 but really need 16-20. So I built up over time looking to supplement those places I did work as a freelancer. (it generally made my life easier as we could put people in mics that otherwise wouldn't be and helped me mix a better show or have backups available if there where problems with the (sometimes very poorly maintained in house systems.)

Having worked with Shure BLX/SLX, AT 2000-3000 series stuff. I find it frustrating to work with for setting up from scratch or intergrating othering things with them.
For systems that stay put or get used only with them selves, or never need more then 10-12 systems running the Shure SLX is the cheapest/least expensive systems I'd buy. (sound wise, i don't have i feel they are on par with the BLX but have more useful features and flexibility.)

IMHO the Sennheiser EW100 or the JTS R4 series hits the perfect price point and features set that makes my life easier for using the systems all together or integrating them with insisting installs. I don't think most places need gear priced over about 600-650 per system. and as a testament to the Gen1/Gen 2 EW100's (Gen 1 receivers, all my transmitters are Gen 2 or gen 3)I have..... They still work flawlessly. Now I don't rent them out on many jobs that I'm not also doing sound for. There are a few exception for light case use or if i know the TD or Sound person that will be overseeing their care. more expensive stuff is belt better. Though the traditional failure points are still there, namely connector into the pack, and the element wire into the element connector. I do prefer the Senneheiser 1/8th locking over the Shure/JTS R4 mini xlr. (the mini xlr on the JTS is my second whiney nitpick i have for it right now.)


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## Jay Ashworth (May 8, 2019)

Aaron Becker said:


> Many years ago I was the sound designer on a large show for a school. We had a failing wireless system in the house - and had been renting for several years as a result. We rented 24 systems from a reputable rental house in town - but my placement of the receivers combined with their non-directional stock antennas provided by the rental house made opening weekend an almost complete blowout due to dropouts and RF issues. I assume a room full of interference (audience) didn't help either. By the third night I "borrowed" some paddle antennas from another facility I had access to and saved the 3rd of 6 shows. (Had I not done this, I probably would've been fired from the show.) All the issues immediately ceased.
> 
> I called the rental house on the next Monday and asked for them to provide me some paddles (since the ones I had acquired for one day were not available for the second weekend of shows). They asked if they could come out to the site and see if they could identify a problem with my setup, since they promised it should've worked as sent. At first they tried to blame my frequency coordination, but I explained that their initial coordination did not account for my IEM systems, house listening assist, wireless intercoms, etc. They conceded and provided me with paddles free of charge for the rest of my shows, and added to our account that we always got paddles at no additional cost for our shows. Needless to say, the rest of the shows went off without a hitch.



WADR to everyone involved: who the hell tries to run 24 channels of wireless mic without log-periodic antennas and the appropriate amplification?


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## RonHebbard (May 8, 2019)

Jay Ashworth said:


> WADR to everyone involved: who the hell tries to run 24 channels of wireless mic without log-periodic antennas and the appropriate amplification?


 *@Jay Ashworth * The scary thing is it probably works for those who don't know it shouldn't. 
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## Jay Ashworth (May 8, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> Oh, my. Yes, ClearCom. Sheesh. FreeSpeak II system. Can't say enough good things about it. It's here.


We're into our second year with FSII.

Two problems:

Our A talk button, most used, has gone intermittent on one of 5 beltpacks (and maybe 2; not sure), and 

The swivel mute switches on the lightweight headsets we got with them have failed 3 out of 5 now, and they're apparently either expensive or impossible to fix. I'll stick with my PL-88...

Otherwise, though, very nice. There's a *bit* more idle static than I'd like, and ti seems to be transmitter-side, but I'll still take 'em.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

Jay Ashworth said:


> There's a *bit* more idle static than I'd like, and ti seems to be transmitter-side, but I'll still take 'em.


We noticed that too. Only happens on transmit, and we tend to leave them PTT mode (less chance that the sly remarks we make to each other in the booth will leak out to a larger audience). A little surprising for a digital device. Makes you wonder where it originates.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 8, 2019)

RonHebbard said:


> *
> 
> Jay Ashworth said:
> 
> ...


That would likely be me. Good time to live by own words and admit I'm ignorant: What are the likely problems in running 24 wireless microphones at the same time?


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## TimMc (May 8, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> That would likely be me. Good time to live by own words and admit I'm ignorant: What are the likely problems in running 24 wireless microphones at the same time?


The Antenna Farm creates reception problems. It's the proximity of the individual antennae to one another. @Jay Ashworth is saying a system of this many receivers needs LPDA or other external (and likely directional) antennas placed optimally and feeding a signal distribution system to drive the receivers.

Yeah, it represents additional complexity and spending. If you can physically separate your receivers a bit (say a couple of feet between pairs of receivers) you'll lessen the potential problem but you'll never improve upon the pair of 1/4 wave antennas on the receiver. External antennas give you much better placement options, and having a selection of antennas with different patterns adds to your ability to work in less favorable RF environments (but you're a radio amateur, so you know about this already  ).

Don't get me wrong, Stevens, I understand that the piggy bank has a limit. My point was to look at what's around your target price point and then audition, as manufacturers don't take identical shortcuts to reach the same price point.


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## FMEng (May 9, 2019)

The problem with separate antennas for each receiver is this: Every receiver has one or more local oscillators that convert the received signal to an intermediate frequency. A tiny bit of RF from that oscillator radiates out the antenna. Another receiver picks up some of that LO frequency energy from the first receiver and mixes it in, and now you have self generated interference. The problems multiply as you add more receivers. By using antenna splitters, you are isolating the receivers so they don't pollute each other.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

TimMc said:


> External antennas give you much better placement options, and having a selection of antennas with different patterns adds to your ability to work in less favorable RF environments (but you're a radio amateur, so you know about this already  ).



Heh. We all know it's nice to put your antenna high and in the clear. My shack tends not to have 24 receivers going at once, so some of this is new to me.


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## Ancient Engineer (May 9, 2019)

My only advice on less pricy wireless mics is to listen carefully to the output for hidden compressors or companders.

Even pricy ones too...

We got a few expensive ENG sets once from a famous manufacturer that had awful companding. It required circuit card surgery to defeat.

The engineers at [email protected]#y were confused why we'd want to defeat this...

Maybe because it sounded like a 500# ogre breathing heavily into a telephone?


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

Ancient Engineer said:


> My only advice on less pricy wireless mics is to listen carefully to the output for hidden compressors or companders.
> 
> Even pricy ones too...
> 
> ...


Just a wild guess, but I wonder if those [email protected]#y products could have been tuned for a typical voice in [email protected][email protected] I was surprised to find out that a video game controller I bought recently had a switch on it that the instructions simply said was to choose between the way westerners tend to us them, and the way easterners do. No more about it than that, but if a game controller has an east/west mode selector, a compander might too.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

Going wildly off-topic here, but the discussion about Rx-to-Rx interference has me wondering: if I separate my antennas with cable, what kind of coax do people suggest I use? I have a ton of RG-58, but that gets lossy at UHF. Would RG-8 be adequate? Something better? (Been some years since I was involved in this aspect of radio, so maybe my questions reflect out-of-date assumptions.)


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## TimMc (May 9, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> Going wildly off-topic here, but the discussion about Rx-to-Rx interference has me wondering: if I separate my antennas with cable, what kind of coax do people suggest I use? I have a ton of RG-58, but that gets lossy at UHF. Would RG-8 be adequate? Something better? (Been some years since I was involved in this aspect of radio, so maybe my questions reflect out-of-date assumptions.)



Times Microwave LMR240 or LMR400 or similar low-loss cable. I spec 240 for short runs (50 ft or less).


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## FMEng (May 9, 2019)

Just do the math. Look at the loss (dB/100 ft). If the loss for the actual length used is less than 3-4 dB, don't worry about it. If it's a long run, you would benefit from better cable.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Times Microwave LMR240 or LMR400 or similar low-loss cable. I spec 240 for short runs (50 ft or less).



Man, that stuff costs, but it does have better specs that even RG-8X, which is what everybody was using for UHF years ago when I was more active. I suppose I don't really need much. What I'd like to do is be able to space the antennas apart enough to avoid the LO leakage interference we were talking about earlier. I doubt my venues would be happy with me I festooned their stages with a lot of RF hoses.


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## TimMc (May 9, 2019)

The loss in cable is still less than the loss in air so a less expensive product is unlikely to compromise your RF levels. The receiver-mounted 1/4 wave antennas need a ground plane, so simply extending a lead and hanging them around will not really help. If you go to half-wave antennas and antenna distribution system you won't need a ground plane.

I've gone through this with a youth musical theater company that, until the first DTV repack and 700mHz spectrum auction, simply piled up their receivers on a table next to the SM. I found a tall and narrow wood bookcase in the PAC that I repurposed as a receiver holder; separating the receivers by 16" combined with getting them above head-height made a significant improvement in RF performance. After the DTV repack 1 of their units sat squarely in the middle of a local full power TV stations new DTV channel, so they purchased an addition unit that ended up creating IM with another of their fixed frequency systems. After a couple of disastrous performances the company decided to rent wireless mic systems and found sponsors to help pay for the rentals.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

TimMc said:


> The loss in cable is still less than the loss in air so a less expensive product is unlikely to compromise your RF levels. The receiver-mounted 1/4 wave antennas need a ground plane, so simply extending a lead and hanging them around will not really help. If you go to half-wave antennas and antenna distribution system you won't need a ground plane.



I can see a distro system in our future. Making UHF 1/4-waves with ground planes is easy, though sixteen of them in one place would start to look like Brobdingnagian barbed-wire, I think. For a half-wave, do you envision a dipole? If so, how would you suggest I polarize them? (If I really get ambitious, I will make a set of log-periodics; they're harder to fabricate that 1/4-waves, but not that much.)


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## TimMc (May 9, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> I can see a distro system in our future. Making UHF 1/4-waves with ground planes is easy, though sixteen of them in one place would start to look like Brobdingnagian barbed-wire, I think. For a half-wave, do you envision a dipole? If so, how would you suggest I polarize them? (If I really get ambitious, I will make a set of log-periodics; they're harder to fabricate that 1/4-waves, but not that much.)



Yep, dipole. Take a look at Shure, Sennheiser, Lectrosonics, Audio-Technica offerings and you'll have a better mental picture of the stock solutions from them. Since you have the chops to roll your own you can do some things they can't, like tuning your antennae to relatively narrow bands. When a stock LPDA has nearly an octave of advertised bandwidth you know how much "extra" RF it's delivering to the receiver...


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 9, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Yep, dipole. Take a look at Shure, Sennheiser, Lectrosonics, Audio-Technica offerings and you'll have a better mental picture of the stock solutions from them. Since you have the chops to roll your own you can do some things they can't, like tuning your antennae to relatively narrow bands. When a stock LPDA has nearly an octave of advertised bandwidth you know how much "extra" RF it's delivering to the receiver...



Good idea. Other than "paddles," I haven't come across many antenna offerings in this area. Got a link for me?

I suppose if I'm going to build finely tuned dipoles, I could take a few extra steps and make Yagis.

Or, I could _really_ freak out my company and make helicals. (Imagine a 4x4 matrix of those monsters, aimed at you from the wings!)


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## Jay Ashworth (May 10, 2019)

FMEng said:


> Just do the math. Look at the loss (dB/100 ft). If the loss for the actual length used is less than 3-4 dB,



*at the frequency you're working at*


> don't worry about it.



 I was gonna say LMR240 also; you don't generally need the heavier stuff for receive applications.


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## Jay Ashworth (May 10, 2019)

They're log-periodics because the bands they need to cover are a significant fraction of an octave, yeah. If you have frequency agile receivers, you don't really want to custom-cut the antennas, in my opinion.

This is *also* why you use an amp and splitter; a *good*, competent antenna isn't something you wanna make 24 of.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 10, 2019)

Jay Ashworth said:


> They're log-periodics because the bands they need to cover are a significant fraction of an octave, yeah. If you have frequency agile receivers, you don't really want to custom-cut the antennas, in my opinion.



The rigs we've bought operate over a 24 MHz chunk near 550 MHz. We're not going to have to cope with anything like much of an octave. Regardless, fine-tuning antennas for this application is probably pointless in any case. I say that because, when you are outdoors on a flat plane with your antenna on a fixed tower, _maybe_ you can use all those beautiful radio formulas to predict the match you'll get for a certain frequency with a certain length of radiator. Indoors, in a theater or auditorium, with lots of other gear nearby, and walls, and wiring, and people wandering around... the apparent length of your radiators is going to change no matter how precisely you cut them on the bench. I have a very successful quarter-wave with a drooping ground plane up in my attic. I use it at 446 MHz. The math says it ought to be about 15 cm long. But my SWR meter didn't agree, so it's less than 14 cm long. Probably capacitance from the surrounding in my attic are effectively lengthening it.


> This is *also* why you use an amp and splitter; a *good*, competent antenna isn't something you wanna make 24 of.



And that's just to get a set polarized one way. The Samson receivers are of the kind that have two front-ends, so the device can pick the one that is delivering the strongest signal from each of two antennas polarized cross-wise. That's one reason a helical actually appeals to me. You can never make a vertical and helical match in polarization, but (unless the vertical is pointed _at_ the helical) you always have _something_ intersecting the E-field.


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## Jay Ashworth (May 10, 2019)

Oh sure. Helicals are just kinda flimsy and easy to break, or difficult to build good housings for in a manufactory environment; take your pick how you wanna look at that. 

I was never a real antenna guy; can you get 24MHz out of a receive helical?


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 11, 2019)

Jay Ashworth said:


> I was never a real antenna guy; can you get 24MHz out of a receive helical?



I suppose the question is really, "How bad's the mismatch at the ends of a 24 MHz range?" The manufacturers make some pretty eye-popping claims about the commercial antennas they sell. They might even be true, and I've read some interesting stuff about helical antennas that had varying pitch in their windings, so who really knows?

What I _do_ know is that those environmental factors always seem to make the laws of physics more like opinions in practice. Since mismatch doesn't reflect power of any significance in a receive-only context. you can get away with quite a bit. (On the transmit side, I've had a lot of success using a fat 50Ω resistor as an "antenna" on my VHF/UHG hand-held transceivers. For use in a theater, it works fine at 500mW. Saves a lot of wear and tear on your vocal cords when you're standing on the stage saying, "No, not that one, try thirty-three. No, try thirty-four," and so on.)

To be honest, I will probably never get to helical antennas. Most likely, I will start with a corner reflector, since that provides a ground plane for a quarter-wave vertical, some directionality, some gain, and is easy to make with cardboard and tin-foil. A more ambitious project might be a small quad. At the 550 MHz regime, one of those would only be five inches on a side, with a ten-inch boom. Again, cheap and easy to make.

Our first set of Samson rigs arrived yesterday. Off to pick them up shortly. Will post a review, as promised.


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## Ben Stiegler (May 16, 2019)

Too late, perhaps, but ...
Samson ... in my experience, u get what u pay for and you’ll likely be paying again soon.

Questions that should be asked before buying anything

1) where exactly are you? Rural? Metro? How near are public safety locations or donut shops where they might congregate? Fire.police.ambulance uses a lot more to power than you can, and I’ve had to engineer special measures (far beyond paddle antennae) to fire-proof (sorry) several Bay Area venues

2) what’s max number of wireless mics and other devices you anticipate using? Low count ... might get away with analog. Higher, or lots of tv/public safety ... you need digital which is more noise resistant, and uses tinier slice of spectrum successfully.

Etc.

There a lot of math and modeling we usually do to prepare for a successful wireless deployment ... and then some ongoing monitoring / analytics to keep an ear on the spectrum as it’s used. My fingers won’t take writing the rest of the how2succeedinwirelesswithoutreallytrying treatise in here, but DM me if you’d like some help planning for success vs. doing experiments.

Good luck!


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 16, 2019)

Ben Stiegler said:


> Too late, perhaps, but ...
> Samson ... in my experience, u get what u pay for and you’ll likely be paying again soon.
> 
> ...DM me if you’d like some help planning for success vs. doing experiments.



I've been testing our first two Samsons on my bench. So far, they are superb. Packs are not as sturdy as more expensive stuff, but they are smaller and lighter. Audio quality is more than adequate for our needs. I also like the continuously variable attenuator. One of my colleagues groused that there is no battery level indicator on the packs, but there is an indicator at the Rx, so you can see it during a show, which I like. (As for what it says, we use fresh cells for every single show. Unless one is bad, we kind of know what the indicator is going to say.)

After almost half a century working with radio electronics (and other electronics), I've come to the conclusion that the extra money you pay for a "name" brand does, in fact, get you something that the lesser brands simply cannot provide: the name. So-called "inferior" stuff often keeps up quite well if you treat it gently and apply an aggressive maintenance program.

Since we perform all over Loudoun county, doing experiments is a fact of life. If I were in a fixed permanent venue, it might be different. But techie work for amateur theater is, in my experience, a continuous process of putting out fires. Kind of what makes it fun, actually.

As for money: I've made this point before, that my little companies just can't take the advice I often get to spend more than we have. We only have what we have. But, again, some TLC and reasonable expectations make up for a lot. While back, a number of folks advised me against buying crummy Chinese lights instead of comparable (in terms of colors and radiation) name instruments. The name stuff cost about $500 each, as opposed to the crummy Chinese cheapies, that were $50 each. Well, those Chinese lights are still in service, working fine, and look like they'll last as long as we remember to be gentle. I know they are regarded as unreliable, but, if one ever fails (hasn't happened yet), I bought a spare. At $50 each, even we can afford to do that.


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## FMEng (May 16, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> After almost half a century working with radio electronics (and other electronics), I've come to the conclusion that the extra money you pay for a "name" brand does, in fact, get you something that the lesser brands simply cannot provide: the name. So-called "inferior" stuff often keeps up quite well if you treat it gently and apply an aggressive maintenance program.



I think that wireless mics are a strong exception to that. What you can't easily see or measure is the selectivity of the IF filter, the RF sensitivity, the tolerance for RF overload, the number of intermodulation products generated by each transmitter, etc. 

A small number of less expensive units will generally perform just fine, but the challenges go up exponentially with the number of systems operating together. What separates cheap from quality is how they work when there are 6, 10, 20 of them running together, and it's why better manufacturers specify how many systems of a given type will behave together, and how much spectrum they need to do it. Some manufactures are afraid to tell us.

With cheaper systems, you may have difficulties that you chalk up to interference in the venue, or antenna placement, or a weak battery, or something else, that would have been completely avoided by better hardware. I'm not afraid to cut corners with low risk components, but I have too many scars from wireless mics to use anything but middle tier or better, from the top three manufacturers.


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## RonHebbard (May 16, 2019)

FMEng said:


> I think that wireless mics are a strong exception to that. What you can't easily see or measure is the selectivity of the IF filter, the RF sensitivity, the tolerance for RF overload, the number of intermodulation products generated by each transmitter, etc.
> 
> A small number of less expensive units will generally perform just fine, but the challenges go up exponentially with the number of systems operating together. What separates cheap from quality is how they work when there are 6, 10, 20 of them running together, and it's why better manufacturers specify how many systems of a given type will behave together, and how much spectrum they need to do it. Some manufactures are afraid to tell us.
> 
> With cheaper systems, you may have difficulties that you chalk up to interference in the venue, or antenna placement, or a weak battery, or something else, that would have been completely avoided by better hardware. I'm not afraid to cut corners with low risk components, but I have too many scars from wireless mics to use anything but middle tier or better, from the top three manufacturers.


 *@Stevens R. Miller* and *@FMEng* And then you add wireless guitars, wireless in-ears, wireless comms plus wireless DMX and an audience full of cell phones along with taxi's coming and going outside your lobby plus the two local police you've hired for security; tell me again about your low-tier successes. In the early days of wireless mics, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival was occasionally picking up taxi's outside our entrances on our Cetec Vega's of the era.
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## TimMc (May 17, 2019)

RonHebbard said:


> *@Stevens R. Miller* and *@FMEng* And then you add wireless guitars, wireless in-ears, wireless comms plus wireless DMX and an audience full of cell phones along with taxi's coming and going outside your lobby plus the two local police you've hired for security; tell me again about your low-tier successes. In the early days of wireless mics, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival was occasionally picking up taxi's outside our entrances on our Cetec Vega's of the era.
> Toodleoo!
> Ron Hebbard



But is it the Big Yellow Taxi?


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 17, 2019)

FMEng said:


> I think that wireless mics are a strong exception to that. What you can't easily see or measure is the selectivity of the IF filter, the RF sensitivity, the tolerance for RF overload, the number of intermodulation products generated by each transmitter, etc.



IMD is a function of frequency choices. The Samsons have tables for groups of eight that look comparable to the tables you find in other brands' manuals, and math is math, no matter how much you spend.

RF overload from a few 10mW transmitters doesn't worry me much.

RF sensitivity is actually easy to measure and, so far, I'm pleased with my bench tests with the Samsons.

IF selectivity is another matter. Here I have to guess that, deep into the 21st century, electronics have become largely off-the-shelf. Over and over, in other areas, I've found virtually identical circuitry (sometimes genuinely identical circuitry) when comparing what's under the lids of competing products. Now, not everything is a circuit. Construction matters too. Things like mounting transformers at right angles to each other in stereo devices used to be a sign of the better brands; now you see it everywhere.

After all these years, when I think back to the '70s, and how the most expensive stuff we had then compares with the cheaper stuff we can buy today, I actually don't mind (as much) that we don't have flying cars. (Speaking of cars, we don't have taxis, police, etc., near our shows. And we just ask the audiences to turn off their cell phones, mostly because even a silenced phone blares loud for an "Amber" alert; I am in that minority that does not believe cell phones emit in the microphone spectrum.)

And, again, cheap is not a choice we are making. We buy cheap or we don't buy.


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## FMEng (May 17, 2019)

IMD is a function of frequency choices, but it is also a function of amplifier characteristics. The design of the transmitter's final stage and the receiver's input stages are also factors. IMD products can be made and re-radiated in either of those places.

RF overload can be caused by other signals in the environment, not just the mic transmitters. A room full of cell phones, or the TV transmitter miles away, can clobber a poorly designed receiver. The interference source doesn't necessarily have to be in the same band. Again, it all depends of the design of the receiver. Is the front end barn door wide, or properly filtered? There is a lot of junk out there.

I respect the fact that you have to buy what you can afford. I just don't want to leave the impression that cheaper is just fine in all cases and will work anywhere. That's just plain false. "You get what you pay for" is still valid.


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 17, 2019)

FMEng said:


> IMD is a function of frequency choices, but it is also a function of amplifier characteristics. The design of the transmitter's final stage and the receiver's input stages are also factors. IMD products can be made and re-radiated in either of those places.
> 
> RF overload can be caused by other signals in the environment, not just the mic transmitters. A room full of cell phones, or the TV transmitter miles away, can clobber a poorly designed receiver. The interference source doesn't necessarily have to be in the same band. Again, it all depends of the design of the receiver. Is the front end barn door wide, or properly filtered? There is a lot of junk out there.



All true, but these are the kinds of issues I am willing to deal with, particularly when 90% of all problems I have ever had with any wireless microphones I have used have been at the mike-to-pack connector. (Another 5% have been at the element, and the last 5% are solved by judicious frequency choices and scheduling the right packs with the right actors.)


> I respect the fact that you have to buy what you can afford. I just don't want to leave the impression that cheaper is just fine in all cases and will work anywhere. That's just plain false. "You get what you pay for" is still valid.



Just to beat this dead horse a moment longer, I will certainly agree that "cheaper is fine in all cases" is NOT true. "You get what you pay for" is also not true in all cases. I have paid quite a lot at various times in my life, only to find what I got was expensive junk. My experiences with theater tech over the last three years have very closely aligned with my experiences with ham radio over the last 45: A lot of good stuff costs a lot of money, and a lot of bad stuff also costs a lot of money. If you are cautious, willing to put in some research, do some extra work, set your expectations at practical levels, and scrutinize your precise needs, you can _sometimes_ find inexpensive options that work well enough for your needs.

But, lest anyone reading all this get the wrong idea, I will reaffirm a point we agree on: Cheaper is NOT always fine.


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## Aaron Becker (May 18, 2019)

Stevens R. Miller said:


> And we just ask the audiences to turn off their cell phones


Believe what you want, people aren't turning them off. 100% guaranteed. 


Stevens R. Miller said:


> After all these years, when I think back to the '70s, and how the most expensive stuff we had then compares with the cheaper stuff we can buy today...



I can't speak for the 70s, but the industry standard wireless microphones for professional shows in the late 90s are still better than any cheap stuff manufactured today - purely by the fact that it was built to last. The only thing wrong with the Shure U series (or the equivalent Senny gear) was that the FCC auctioned off the spectrum. I had systems upon systems of U-series chugging along without an end in sight until the FCC sold off the 700 MHz band. The were built rock solid and were leaps and bounds ahead of anything else produced around the same time. 

I truly hope your "cheap" gear works and the gamble pays off for you. I agree with @FMEng - wireless mics have always been - and will continue to be the exception to buying cheap and hoping it works, especially in this industry. If it was my gig and it was a choice of buying cheap vs not at all - I'd be saving my money and not buying at all - period.


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## DavidJones (May 20, 2019)

Sometimes cheaper is fine, and sometimes more expensive things ARE actually nicer, but you don't actually NEED those nice things. Somethings are more expensive because you can still get 24-hour tech support on a 20-year-old product that you bought second, or third, or fourth-hand. You cannot expect that kind of support from a budget product, but if you have the knowledge and time to do your own testing, maintenance, and troubleshooting, maybe even modifications, you can certainly get an inexpensive product to work well.

My main observations in "Cheap" vs "expensive" is physical build quality, and ease of use. A lot of times the actual functionality is similar. Sometimes paying more is worth not having to look up what the random codes mean on the menus and what combinations of buttons to press, just to change basic settings, other times its worth extra hassle to save money.


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## steine (May 21, 2019)

As for an antenna, you might tweak the HB9CV design to make it match?

Did that years ago with a setup in the VHF range, and had no problems.

btw. as for HAM: OZ2AEV here


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## Stevens R. Miller (May 21, 2019)

steine said:


> As for an antenna, you might tweak the HB9CV design to make it match?



The matching transformers on that design look a bit finicky to me. I was thinking of starting with a two-element quad. No transformer needed and (some say) a bit more gain than a two-element Yagi. Easy to make, too.


> btw. as for HAM: OZ2AEV here



Treoghalvfjerds, gammel mand!


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