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[2ohm]

Unrelated, does anyone know if Shure can retune their prem stuff,

 

Rob,

 

I'm the Applications Manager for Shure UK. The UHF-R (I take it that's what you mean) can be modified to operate in Channel 38. For any new systems you can get frequency band J5E (578-638MHz). This conveniently covers channel 38-40.

[cedd]

........but the recent price hike for the Senn G3 range has made us consider other manufacturers :) and also Senn G3 seems to be in short supply in the UK.

I think the supply situation will get worse as DSO progresses across the country & 2012 approaches.

Ditto that for me!

I was almost definately going to go Sennheiser all the way, and had plans (before DSO came along) to buy a rack of 8 G2's, expanding later to 12.

Now I'm really starting to look at other manufacturers. With the higher price point of G3 it's almost worthwhile starting to look towards people like Zaxcom and Trantec's digital offerings - after all, for a touch more money you can squeeze in a lot more channels, and as a long term investment, it seems wise to move with the times.

If Sennheiser don't bring out an affordable G2-level 2012 compliant system, I see them loosing a lot of otherwise very faithful and happy customers. Pricing up a G2 ew100-based rack of 8 compared to the nearest G3 model, the difference in price is huge!

[AndyL]

So, essentially, according to today's post, I can now buy a license with ch38 on it. And ch69. So, both, for the same price. That's great, apart from I bought one in October, for 2 years. So now ch38 licenses are available, does that mean my license covers ch38 too, given that you can now pay the SAME price and get both? Does it F**K. NO!. If I want ch38 I have to buy another! It's loose change, but it's the bloody principle of it all.

Hi Bob,

 

Re: the licence, I thought we could get a free 'upgrade'? From the Ofcom letter :

 

All UHF Shared UK Wireless Microphone licences bought on or after 4 January 2010 will

include these additional frequencies. However, those who have already renewed a channel

69 shared licence that was due to expire on or after 4 January 2010 may swap this for a new

channel 38/39/40/69 shared licence at no additional cost.

 

...although I did find the wording of the above less than clear and I haven't attempted to 'upgrade' mine yet. I take it you had a conversation about this with JFMG already?

Ok, it seems from postings on another forum elsewhere, postings of excellent proveneance I should add (i.e. from JFMG!) that Ofcom declined to allow them (JFMG) to issue free replacement ch.38 licences to all existing ch.69 licence holders for the unexpired period of the licence even though it was apparently offered as a no cost (i.e. no cost to Ofcom) option. It sounds as though, JFMG who after all actually deal with the users, thought this was the right thing to do, but their (only) client, Ofcom saw things differently.

 

Only if you got a renewal letter before the anouncement was made - they send them out six weeks in advance - for a licence that would expire on or after 4 January 2010 do you get the new frequencies for free, apparently.

[Rob_Beech]

Not the UHFR (sadly) the old U4D receivers and the associated transmitters, or are they classed as "too old to do anything with". Understandable if that's the case.

[ianl]

Not the UHFR (sadly) the old U4D receivers and the associated transmitters, or are they classed as "too old to do anything with". Understandable if that's the case.

 

I too would like to know if the shure U4D kit can be retuned (and rough idea of cost - if any :) )

 

also if the ULXP kit can be retuned and if a retune to ch 38 would leave it still able to do ch70

[Rob_Beech]

I think the issue is the RANGE rather than anything else. They can only cover a certain range at any one time depending on how they are tuned. As channel 38 is quite some distance from ch70 they can't do both. This is second hand information so I could be slightly inaccurate but it's what I'm told. This is the reason WHY the stuff has to be retuned, if it were efficient over such a massive area of the spectrum then the chances are it would be open to use it all or at least restricted electronically that the manufacturer or service centres could adjust for a small fee.

 

Rob

 

Sticking with Shure, having a rack of 4 (random bits in stock) old UC series, these will be skippable as they don't do CH70. REALLY reliable mics though.

[Rob_Beech]

There are alsochanges to distribution systems. Numerous companies told me the asp2 was discontinued but now apparently not.

[cedd]

There are alsochanges to distribution systems. Numerous companies told me the asp2 was discontinued but now apparently not.

And don't forget aerial systems too. I've got £200 of aerials alone to replace. Luckily Canford already have one for the new band, but yet another expense, and if I use a rack of 4 channel 70 mics alongside any 38 stuff I get, it'll be 2 different sets of aerials, all fighting for the same space.

Luckily my ADU's are compatible with both, so that' one less thing to worry about.

 

C

[2ohm]

Not the UHFR (sadly) the old U4D receivers and the associated transmitters, or are they classed as "too old to do anything with". Understandable if that's the case.

 

The UHF Series was discontinued roughly 5 years ago and is not modifiable to ch38. It never had a frequency version that covered ch38 so the hardware does not even exist.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

also if the ULXP kit can be retuned and if a retune to ch 38 would leave it still able to do ch70

 

ULX can be modified (soon) to work in channel 38 but once the modification is done it will not tune to ch70. To cover both ch38 and ch70 a tuning bandwidth of about 250MHz would be required which would leave the products far too prone to interference and the cost of the units would also be rather astronomical.

[AndyL]

And don't forget aerial systems too. I've got £200 of aerials alone to replace. Luckily Canford already have one for the new band, but yet another expense, and if I use a rack of 4 channel 70 mics alongside any 38 stuff I get, it'll be 2 different sets of aerials, all fighting for the same space.

Luckily my ADU's are compatible with both, so that' one less thing to worry about.

 

C

What antennas do you use?

The Sennheiser A 2003-UHF and A 1031-U passive antennas are both wide band and will work fine on any UHF channel.

If you have the active A 12-AD UHF they can be re-tuned for relatively little cost compared to their value, but the bandwidth of the filters in the active bit precludes the same unit from being used on both channel 38 and 70.

If you have the GZA 1036-9 ground plane antennas then you can replace the rods with new ones cut to the appropriate length.

 

If you are using wide band antennas and a wide band RF distribution system then you potentially don't need any more antennas "fighting for the same space", just the two.

 

Of course all these costs should be covered by any funding package that becomes available, unless you are replacing them from pure choice... :)

[cedd]

What antennas do you use?

(snip)

If you are using wide band antennas and a wide band RF distribution system then you potentially don't need any more antennas "fighting for the same space", just the two.

 

Of course all these costs should be covered by any funding package that becomes available, unless you are replacing them from pure choice... :)

 

Unfortunately I use the Lintec Yagi antennae, so they're quite frequency specific. I've never particularly been a fan of paddle antennas, no real reason, I've used them with no negative results, it's just that at work (radio communications for an airport) we still use Yagis whenever possible (when it's directional reception - doesn't happen very often in our business, omni pattern is always handy so we use dipoles or halo's, although the "cone of silence" at the end of a dipole can be a pain - most of our targets tend to be directly above us!) and so I guess it's my comfort zone!

 

If I replace, (buy new - I'm currently a channel 70 and VHF user, was ready to invest in a 69 system just when DSO kicked off, so I've nothing to trade in/get funding from - I don't have a license cause I don't need one yet) then I'm not sure what I'll go for. Wideband means I can split it and use them with all my stuff, that said, the selectivity and Q factor of a Yagi antenna is always useful for rejecting interference. I'm not sure of the internal architecture of the receivers we use, but I know that on aviation sets, off band interference still has an effect on the automatic gain control at the front end, effectively de-sensitising the receiver. Not sure if the sets we use in the theatre are that clever!!!

 

The fight for space is purely a mechanical thing - Yagi antennae are really quite large, I tend to use 5 element yagi's, the extra gain is always handy and helps account for any cable losses. Number of elements of course depends on frequency and what I can get hold of!

[AndyL]

What antennas do you use?

(snip)

If you are using wide band antennas and a wide band RF distribution system then you potentially don't need any more antennas "fighting for the same space", just the two.

 

Unfortunately I use the Lintec Yagi antennae, so they're quite frequency specific. I've never particularly been a fan of paddle antennas, no real reason, I've used them with no negative results, it's just that at work (radio communications for an airport) we still use Yagis whenever possible (when it's directional reception - doesn't happen very often in our business, omni pattern is always handy so we use dipoles or halo's, although the "cone of silence" at the end of a dipole can be a pain - most of our targets tend to be directly above us!) and so I guess it's my comfort zone!

 

If I replace, (buy new - I'm currently a channel 70 and VHF user, was ready to invest in a 69 system just when DSO kicked off, so I've nothing to trade in/get funding from - I don't have a license cause I don't need one yet) then I'm not sure what I'll go for. Wideband means I can split it and use them with all my stuff, that said, the selectivity and Q factor of a Yagi antenna is always useful for rejecting interference. I'm not sure of the internal architecture of the receivers we use, but I know that on aviation sets, off band interference still has an effect on the automatic gain control at the front end, effectively de-sensitising the receiver. Not sure if the sets we use in the theatre are that clever!!!

 

The fight for space is purely a mechanical thing - Yagi antennae are really quite large, I tend to use 5 element yagi's, the extra gain is always handy and helps account for any cable losses. Number of elements of course depends on frequency and what I can get hold of!

What you describe is the typical antenna choice dilema.

 

The RF engineer part of the brain wants to have frequency specific band pass filtered everything. However the real world practicalities of most radio mic use (rental companies, OB's) make the wide band 'paddle' antennas a no brainer. As an alternative to the yagi the log periodic is a pretty good solution to the bandwidth problem. Probably why all the major radio mic manufacturers seem to make and sell them. The commonly available ones will give you about the same gain as your 5 ele yagi with a useful 90 degree beamwidth. I used to be a big fan of ground planes for UHF radio mics (and folded dipoles for VHF), but I am now a complete convert to log periodic paddles - except for dry hire operations where I still recommend the A 1031 omni directional paddle antenna, because there is no wrong way to point them!

 

I don't know of a receiver design that does not suffer from de-sensing to some extent. I also know that their aren't many sound folk who are aware of the concept which is why one of my most frequent bits of advice is about moving the IEM receiver away from the guitar transmitter on the performers belt.... and not trying to put all the radio mics and IEM's in the same 8MHz channel. De-sensing is also one of the hidden downsides of having receivers with wider tuning ranges. Back in the days of single frequency xtal controlled receivers you could tune the front end quite tightly, not so easy with 75MHz or more tuning range - at least not when people already think radio mics are expensive! Which brings us back to the slight disadvantage of using wideband antennas. Of course there is nothing to stop you using a wide band antenna to economise on the real estate requirements and then using multiple band pass filters to split the signal before it hits any active devices. We have done this quite a lot on some of our bigger installs where lots of receiving antennas are combined to cover a large site.

 

I haven't done the arithmetic but I am guessing that the RF dynamic range handling requirements of an Air/Ground receiver is a lot bigger than a radio mic receiver would normally have to cope with. Unless there is a TV transmitter within the front end tuning range nearby, which of course is far more likely with a larger tuning range.

 

Incidentally the 'cone' or other zone of silence can be very helpful when TX (e.g. IEM) antennas need to be located near RX antennas. Positioning them in each others 'dead' zones minimises coupling between them and helps with the aforementioned de-sensing and also with intermod.

[tolley1466]

Hi All,

 

I got a reply from my MP, Micheal Spicer and he's signed the EDM :(

[AndyL]

Hi All,

 

I got a reply from my MP, Micheal Spicer and he's signed the EDM ;)

 

Excellent!

 

In fact the EDM now has 107 signatures having broken through the 100 barrier yesterday.

 

And even if an MP doesn't want to or can't sign the EDM every letter they receive raises awareness of the issue, so this is all good. :up:

[Guest lightnix]

I see that my MP, John Horam (C. - Orpington) has also fulfilled his pre-Christmas promise to sign the EDM ;)