Rf guru help needed

B

Brian Lloyd

Freshman
Nov 28, 2011
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Hey all you rf guys! Need some advise. I'm on a national tour with both wireless mics and ears. Just trying to make the talent as happy as possible. Some of the guys tend to complain about dropouts on their ears from time to time. Here is our setup:

8 Shure ulxp receivers located on stage...upstage center (for now...I want to move them stage right) no paddles...just duck antennas

6 sennheiser g3 300 units located at foh...with full paddle system. This sometimes can we up to 150ft away from the stage.

If I move the ears down to the stage will I risk losing range on my shures since they don't have paddles. Only 2 of the 8 packs run in the same range as the ears (this overlap occurred before I got here). I coordinate frequencies at every venue. The ears don't go out for long...just for a second here and there. I do my best to walk the packs before each show but I never have problems except when I go way off the stage and behind concrete and steel of course.

Any other suggestions? Paddles for the mics are not an option.

Thanks!
Brian
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

Closer is going to be better. You don't have a crowd when you do the walk test, I'm guessing.

Keep your ears rack (and antennas, of course) at least a few feet from your mic rack, should be no problems with having both on stage.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

thanks guys....the length of my snake doesnt bother me. the main snake head sits dead center stage. all stage inputs for the band are loomed to fit with the snake in this location. yeah i know the crowd can sometimes soak up RF...but i never thought it would be an issue like this. i am going to have to buy some 8 pair snake to move the mics no matter what...so another 50ft of snake for the ears is nothing. i keep my paddles usually 10-12ft apart at all times...and about 8ft in the air...above as many heads as possible. i know you are not supposed to point paddles at eachother...if i put mics on one side and ears on the other...even though the mics dont have paddles...would there still be issues because the paddles are firing at them? (note...i guess this is the same as it is now...just not 100ft between them) the other idea is going back to what i used to do....and thats put the paddles on stage....20 ft apart...firing at the back of the talent. the only issue is...the paddles would have to be low to stay out of sight from the crowd...and would have to shoot through 2 band members to hit the talent. i guess 2 is better than 800 right? this would still have the mic receivers placed offstage right where they can easily be monitored by a local tech. (if i gotta pay someone to sit there...might as well have them watch some flashing lights)
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

I think you're overstating "don't have antennas near each other" and understating "FOH is not that far from the stage".

If your stage box is dead stage center... is there room to put the IEM rack there too with an omni antenna? Hard to get any closer to the talent than that!

You can also reduce the worry about IEM antennas pointing towards mic antennas by doing different polarization angles - you should already have the two mic antennas angled 90 degrees apart, you could then have the IEM antenna halfway between those angles to reduce the amount of IEM signal is seen by the mic receivers.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

Brian Lloyd said:
this would still have the mic receivers placed offstage right where they can easily be monitored by a local tech. (if i gotta pay someone to sit there...might as well have them watch some flashing lights)
Click to expand...

Or run a network cable with you snake and use a simple network switch and run the Sennheiser WSM (wireless systems manager) so you can see what the wireless are doing from the house mix position. The G3 300 series has networking capabilities built in.

http://www.sennheiser.com/wsm
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

A proper antenna distro for your wireless mics and IEMs would help greatly, all those rubber ducky antennas are not helping you. Also, how are you doing your RF coordination? Are you using software for that? or just using the built channel scanning feature of the receivers and IEM transmitters. You might look into this software by Stage Research.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

a new antenna system is out of the question for the mics. hoping to replace the entire system in the next year. the IEMS have a proper antenna system spec'ed out for us by sennheiser...down to the cables...lol.i dont care for the software for the iems...they behave during the show...no need for the software and carrying MORE cat-5 than i already do (600 feet for 2 digital snakes already in use).frequencies are scanned throughout the day with Invisible Waves X.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

Brian Lloyd said:
frequencies are scanned throughout the day with Invisible Waves X.
Click to expand...
Well, there's your other problem, the Kaltman Creation stuff is pretty worthless. Get a real spectrum analyzer. But even then, you need to have your RF properly coordinated before you go into it, which is what RF Guru and IAS by Professional Wireless does. The RF scanner will tell you if there is some rogue frequency that is causing problems, but won't do anything to help alleviate intermodulation or interference by local radio and TV transmitters.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

trust me...if it was me...it would be done right. but when its not my money...i have to make what i have work. being in a different venue, in a different city...sometimes in a different state every day doesnt allow for planning when it comes to coordination. just gotta knock it out when im there in the space.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

Brian Lloyd said:
trust me...if it was me...it would be done right. but when its not my money...i have to make what i have work.
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said that you were on a "national tour". Seems to me that anyone who is producing and supporting a national tour of A level talent would get the money and equipment to do the job right, every night for every show. That's what working at that level means. Go to your producer or tour manager and tell them that the equipment you have currently isn't working, and that to do it right you need $X.xx.
being in a different venue, in a different city...sometimes in a different state every day doesn't allow for planning when it comes to coordination. just gotta knock it out when im there in the space.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is EXACTLY what RF Guru and IAS do. They are RF coordination programs that allow you to input your equipment, and cross references your location via zip code to the FCC Database and tells you what the frequency for each piece of equipment should be for that location, given the RF environment that you are operating in. It's not perfect and absolute, but it will get you 90% (or more) of the way there. And trust me, once you build your show, and input your equipment all you have to do is change locations and it will output the proper frequencies coordinated for that location. There is no "just gotta knock it out" factor involved. All you have to do is change frequencies, and often on only just a few units. Of course, proper coordination is a moot point when you are dealing with a system that isn't set up properly in the first place.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

I have been using RFGuru at the bar tour level we are on and it has been a God send for us. As said, not 100% perfect but usually gets us really close. It can't account for everything. (I worked on a military base last night and AT hardware group scanning for just four units on 1200 channels each couldn't find 4 channels that were free in any group. RFGuru gave me some choices that scanning didn't, and we got three working fine, and the last one would give us static randomly for a brief second here and there that squelch couldn't fix so we lived with it.)

After getting the gear roster in, adding a venue and finding the info you need takes just over 5 seconds for us after we put in a zip code. We can start to finish 9 wireless units (counting mics and IEMs) and be done in 15 minutes with everything and it works almost everywhere all the time without issue, When I get an issue I just remember how bad it was before the software and we write it off as the risk we take counting on wireless with a traveling road show.

For what it cost vs the benefits we get, it is a no brainer.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

Justice C. Bigler said:
Well, there's your other problem, the Kaltman Creation stuff is pretty worthless. Get a real spectrum analyzer. But even then, you need to have your RF properly coordinated before you go into it, which is what RF Guru and IAS by Professional Wireless does. The RF scanner will tell you if there is some rogue frequency that is causing problems, but won't do anything to help alleviate intermodulation or interference by local radio and TV transmitters.
Click to expand...

I am curious what is it that you feel is wrong with the Kaltman Creation stuff. I know that some of the Kaltman stuff uses the WinRadio as the scanner. I don’t use their stuff but I do have a WinRadio that I use with Shure Wireless Work Bench. But lately I have just been using the Shure receivers with WWB and have been having excellent results. But that is because I have been using just the Shure UHF-R systems and I haven’t had to deal with any other wireless in other frequency bands.
 
Re: Rf guru help needed

justice....i work for a self contained company...no 3rd parties. we have to buy things in stages. 2 years ago it was iems and a avid board for me...this year was a new light board and almost 2 months overseas. i havent had really any trouble with the Kaltman stuff...especially since the new release of the X software. its good enough for what we do. with this kind of show its about making what you have work. the show has been on the road for 18 years now and ive been with it for 7. i wish i had a huge budget, but ive had to make due with whatever i had and i dont regret a second of it. i thank you all for your suggestions...it seems this post has taken a hard left turn and thats about it for me. i have the info i need and thats what i came here for. with the economy the way that it is and our industry the way that it is...im thankful to have a gig at this point...let alone one that pays the bills and keep me on the road as long as it does. sure i would love a big national A level tour with every toy imaginable...but with it comes risk...and again...im happy where i am doing what i love day in and day out. so thank you all once again. as one last note...this post was not written to be about the software...it was simply looking for other engineers who might have a bit more experience with RF than i do.
 
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