I got to talking with a friend about if you were going to buy wireless gear right now, what would you get to try to be future proof against FCC auctions? Below are my observations of the options. What do you think? What would you buy to be "future resistant"?
-Upper 500mhz band... Year right. I give it 4 years until they auction that one off too.
-470mhz to low 500mhz like Sennheiser A1 for Shure G3 bands. I have the feeling it's a little safer than the upper 500mhz range, but not much. You might get 7 or 8 years, but it's going to be sold off soon too.
-900mhz. Safe. The FCC isn't going to auction it off, but it's full of baby monitors, walkie talkies, and a variety of other consumer products. Plus it's limited in size so you can can only up to 5 mics in this range, not 15. It tends to be lower quality gear.
-1.92-1.93 ghz "DECT" band. Safe from FCC sales, but most cordless landline phones operate here, lots of potential complications.
-2.4ghz Safe from auction. But full of bluetooth and wifi issues.
-5.8ghz It's legal. Is there anything made that works in this range?
VHF 54mhz-470mhz- There are a lot of reasonably priced products in this range and they are relatively safe from FCC issues. But I don't know of any real pro-quality products in the VHF range.
900mhz Part 74 licensed products. Not available to most of us
Sennheiser Band 1G8. 1,785-1,800 mhz Are these legal in the U.S.? I don't think so, but it would be cool.
So all of that said, I'm sadly stuck with saying if you need pro-quality gear you are probably best to stay in UHF at this point with a mic that goes down to 470 mhz... but there's a good chance it won't be legal for long. If you only need a few mics and your space has a fairly large campus keeping you isolated from other devices, then perhaps a 900mhz or 2.4ghz will do the trick.
What is your opinion, I know a lot of you have followed this closer than I have and I'm sure I've made some errors in my assumptions above.
-Upper 500mhz band... Year right. I give it 4 years until they auction that one off too.
-470mhz to low 500mhz like Sennheiser A1 for Shure G3 bands. I have the feeling it's a little safer than the upper 500mhz range, but not much. You might get 7 or 8 years, but it's going to be sold off soon too.
-900mhz. Safe. The FCC isn't going to auction it off, but it's full of baby monitors, walkie talkies, and a variety of other consumer products. Plus it's limited in size so you can can only up to 5 mics in this range, not 15. It tends to be lower quality gear.
-1.92-1.93 ghz "DECT" band. Safe from FCC sales, but most cordless landline phones operate here, lots of potential complications.
-2.4ghz Safe from auction. But full of bluetooth and wifi issues.
-5.8ghz It's legal. Is there anything made that works in this range?
VHF 54mhz-470mhz- There are a lot of reasonably priced products in this range and they are relatively safe from FCC issues. But I don't know of any real pro-quality products in the VHF range.
900mhz Part 74 licensed products. Not available to most of us
Sennheiser Band 1G8. 1,785-1,800 mhz Are these legal in the U.S.? I don't think so, but it would be cool.
So all of that said, I'm sadly stuck with saying if you need pro-quality gear you are probably best to stay in UHF at this point with a mic that goes down to 470 mhz... but there's a good chance it won't be legal for long. If you only need a few mics and your space has a fairly large campus keeping you isolated from other devices, then perhaps a 900mhz or 2.4ghz will do the trick.
What is your opinion, I know a lot of you have followed this closer than I have and I'm sure I've made some errors in my assumptions above.