Stuart91 Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 I'm working with a venue who are relatively low on budget. They have a reasonable proportion of the audience whose English is far from brilliant, and are hoping to provide some sort of translation service. At the moment they have one person who sits in a corner of the room and translates for the folks sitting around her, but the sound of this is offputting to everyone else and it would be good t There's not really the money available for multiple IEM systems or infra-red solutions. Whilst chatting it through with them one possibility I came up with was using an iTrip style FM transmitter, and handing out FM radios to the punters. The advantages:It's a wireless system, so users can sit wherever they like within the area coveredIt's relatively cheap to implementLow-powered FM transmitters are now legalReceivers will be cheap and users can keep them for use elsewhere My concerns:I have no idea what kind of range these transmitters have. I've never tried one out and whilst I expect it'll work within the confines of a vehicle, I don't know how good it'll be in a reasonable sized room. Not sure how easy it is to find a clear frequency. If they are having to re-tune every week to avoid intermodulation etc. the system will probably fall apart. Has anyone out there tried this kind of thing out anywhere? Or had enough of a play around with a (legal) transmitter to be able to shed any light on the possible range? I'm keen to have some more info before I recommend they buy something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 I believe the law says that the range is to be no more than 1 meter.But I may be Wrong. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 You'd need a better transmitter than an itrip, the range on those things is designed to be really *really* short Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 I believe the law says that the range is to be no more than 1 meter.But I may be Wrong. You are The law specifies radiated power, not range. The Wireless Telegraphy (Exemption) (Amendment) Regulations 2006 permit the use of these units, but with output power limited to 50 nanoWatts, which in practice means a max range of about 8m. How about using an induction loop system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 The Wireless Telegraphy (Exemption) (Amendment) Regulations 2006 permit the use of these units, but with output power limited to 50 nanoWatts, which in practice means a max range of about 8m. How about using an induction loop system? 8m might be enough. It would probably mean designating one section of seating for those who want to receive the service, but that's still better than tying people to wired headphones. The venue already has an induction loop system, and are using it for an English feed to hearing aid users. Also, I don't fancy the cost of "loop listeners" especially when compated to simple FM radios. Persumably an 8m range means that if I was to mount the unit in the ceiling (they have a suspended ceiling) that would mean an 8m radius on the coverage area? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnhuson Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Whilst it may be possible to achieve 8m with a legal transmitter from experience I think you will find the range of an iTrip to be much less, I'd put it in the region of 4-5m with good line of sight. But hey that may just be my iTrip, and I don't know how other brands of of transmitters fair, Belkin seems to be the other main contender. I'd be interested to hear of your final solution and how successful it was. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Langfeld Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Could you not mount sockets for wired headphones in the seats and use some cheap headphone amplifiers, aircraft style? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pritch Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 It may be worth a call to Ofcom just to clarify the legality of what you're doing. I've just tried looking through their website to see exactly what you can and can't use these transmitters for, but can't find the relevant legislation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 Could you not mount sockets for wired headphones in the seats and use some cheap headphone amplifiers, aircraft style? Nice idea, but unfortunately the seats aren't fixed (and frequently get moved around) so it wouldn't work in this instance. John, have you actually tried an iTrip and found that it's got a 4-5m range, or is that an educated guess? We could probably mount high enough to get decent line of sight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 the 8m figure comes from http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/mofaq/rcomms/itrip/ but I'd guess that it depends greatly on the receiver sensitivity. Getting back to the wired solution - how about a small flightcase containing a couple of 8-way headphone amps? Only needs 2 cables to the "outside world", so easy to deploy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 How often do you need to do this? Unless it's very frequent you may be better off hiring in one of the several translation services as required. They turn up, erect a portable "sound proof booth" for the translator(s), distribute wireless (or IR) receivers for delegates and basically just do it all for you. Prices aren't bad (considering the service provided) and would certainly compare well to buying a large pile of radio receivers just for this. Don't forget that, any time you hand out headphones to customers, you'll need to have some schedule of cleaning/disinfecting the earbuds. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottmcleod Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 How often do you need to do this? Unless it's very frequent you may be better off hiring in one of the several translation services as required. They turn up, erect a portable "sound proof booth" for the translator(s), distribute wireless (or IR) receivers for delegates and basically just do it all for you. Prices aren't bad (considering the service provided) and would certainly compare well to buying a large pile of radio receivers just for this. Don't forget that, any time you hand out headphones to customers, you'll need to have some schedule of cleaning/disinfecting the earbuds. Bob Dollar stores are your friend in this case. Earbuds in theatre are usually thrown out with hearing assist systems. (They're designed to be cheap/tossable). I had to research a similar system for an art installation this past september, and we came up with some FM Transmitters from a company in the USA (I can't remember quite who now...) from 150-250$ that gave 100m-150m of transmission, on an FM frequency. The other half of the project (recieving end) was solved when I discovered the dollar store carried small FM radios for... you guessed it, 1$! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterT Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 What sort of Loop system is it?The sennheiser infra-red one in the local theatre has 2 channels which you can either have singly or as a stereo pair and is used each year by the Vocaleyes people to facilitate their commentary. With 2 channels 1 is the normal deaf-aid send then you can plug into the second with your translator and Bob's some relation or other. If you've got the standard wire-in-the-ground type thing it may be worth looking at updating. I may be wrong but I believe grants are available to cover some if not most of the cost of this. Heck there may even be money because you want to provide the translation service! Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 How often do you need to do this? It'll be used once or twice a week. (Possibly more) I'd envisage that regular punters would keep their own radios (especially if they can be picked up in pound stores) with a small stock kept on hand for visitors. The loop in the room is a tradition induction loop with a wire round the perimeter of the seating area. I wouldn't consider an infra-red system much of an upgrade to this, because it wouldn't interface directly with people's hearing aids - they'd need to buy a bunch more receivers. Thanks for the info about translation services - I wasn't really aware that this kind of thing existed. Might be useful for bigger, one-off events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterT Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I wouldn't consider an infra-red system much of an upgrade to this, because it wouldn't interface directly with people's hearing aids - they'd need to buy a bunch more receivers. Ah but the beauty of the system is that you get some personal loop units (literally a cord that goes around the person's neck) and they switch their hearing aid to 'T' and all are happy so you have the headsets for those who don't have the aid but want a 'bit of a boost' and you have the personal loops for those with aids.Again I'm pretty sure the theatre got a grant to do this upgrade so it may well cost less than you think and it'll please the visiting people no end who insist on the loop being switched off to avoid interference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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