Sennheiser Ch38 conversion

[Richard P-W]

I'm referring to this:

 

http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/uk/home_en.nsf/root/dealersearch_ch69_ch38_alteration_pricing

 

It seems quite reasonable at £200+vat per system, otherwise I was going to sell some of my 69/70 kit in the New Year.

 

Anyone recommend it? Do you get back the same kit (with new RF boards and antennas) that you send in or refurbished replacements?

[Simon Lewis]

I'm not sure what they change, but it does not apply to G1 or G2 gear, which is probably what most of us wanted to change over... Which systems do you have?

[Richard P-W]

I've got some G2 and then back in 2010 I bought 4x G3 systems from the supplier of electrical things for stages - they were clearing out stock at a silly price...

 

My plan (at the time) was to use them all until the end of this year, then retire the G2, keep the old G3 for Ch70 and start buying new Ch38 G3 systems. What I'm thinking now is keep the G2 (as it's still going strong) and upgrade my G3 instead.

[Simon Lewis]

The G2 cannot be converted, unfortunately. The G3 can be changed, although depending on whether you have 100, 300 or 500 it is either about half the cost of the unit or only about 1/4 of the cost to upgrade....

I'm suprised that your supplier was clearing out stock of the (at the time) brand new G3? Most were clearing out G2 at favourable prices?

[Richard P-W]

I've got the 100 series.

 

I was a little surprised too at their clearance, as you say, it was brand new kit at the time.

 

Now they only sell the Ch38 versions from stock - I guess it avoids confusion on the part of customers.

 

I didn't stop to ask questions at the time, a smidge over £200 was an opportunity not to be missed! I even got a bag of chocolate coins in the delivery box :D

 

Which brings me back to the original dilemma - do I convert or replace. They've more than paid for themselves in hires so the money is in the pot to be used. I suppose the big unknown is how busy will Ch70 get from next year?

[sleah]

I suppose the big unknown is how busy will Ch70 get from next year?

 

That's an interesting point. I guess it's fair to assume there are two reasons why you would be in Ch69.

Either because you are already in Ch70 and need the extra capacity, or because you don't want to use Ch70 because it's crowded or you would just prefer not to chance it becoming so.

So once Ch69 is lost, why would anyone then start using Ch70 given the perfectly valid reasons for not using it before?

 

Newbies will continue as before, if they intend to do it right and get a license they will then be clued up, if they are ignorant of licensing then they will either carry on illegaly or be in Ch70 anyway!

 

Am I in the ball-park or a million miles away? :** laughs out loud **:

 

Edit: read Ch69 as Ch68/69 blah blah

[paulears]

It's not newbies - any newbie interested enough to do some research will find all this out - the problem people are the people who bought from a music shop, where the staff only know two things about radios, can they work on more than one channel, and their price. I've noticed many small music outlets with stock of old G2 systems on the shelf, because they didn't realise they should have been selling them off cheap to clear their stock - that carried on at the usual £50 above internet source prices, assuming that one day somebody would walk in and buy them. This sounds silly, but only yesterday I was a in a friend guitar shop and an elderly chap walked in and asked if they had any guitars like the shadows and dire straits use? He was shown a strat and something else pretty, and he asked if they also had a microphone that would make him sound like Matt Monroe? My friend asked how good he was, and he said he could play all 6 strings, so wouldn't have any problems playing sultans of swing or apache. He bought the start without even trying it. These are the people who bought ch 69/70 systems and just use it on the first channel the thing was on. Music shops didn't talk licenses - they just put the money in the till. No doubt some did, but very few I think.

 

Now 4G is up and running, we'll have to watch out for new members signing up because they get strange noises on the radio systems.

[Richard P-W]

So once Ch69 is lost, why would anyone then start using Ch70 given the perfectly valid reasons for not using it before?

 

Simply because of costs. In am-dram land a lot of technical facilities are provided by individuals financing equipment out of their own pockets.

 

Even with the Equiniti offer I wouldn't have been able to hand over 8 systems and then go out and buy 8 replacements in one go.

 

If equipment is still functioning perfectly then why not use it in Ch70, if possible? I've already tried the frequencies suggested by Sennheiser to get 6 channels into Ch70 and it works. This gives me time to move into Ch38 as and when necessary (i.e. Ch70 becomes impossible to use reliably) and also when my wallet allows.

[paulears]

It's all down to where you live. While waiting in my van in a small village only last week, I thought I'd have a tune around channel 70 (because I was bored, really) I was in a small village, just a few miles from my home. Channel 70 had one free space with nothing in it, but every other one was occupied - and one had two on the same channel - obviously unaware of each other. I found another 4 on the go in channel 69. The village has a busy pub with live music, plus three holiday centres within 400m or so from where I was parked. The Holiday centre presumably haven't changed their channel 69 kit, and the band in the pub and the DJ were happy on their 70 kit. If (when) interference makes the holiday centre move upwards, the co-habiting on channel 70 might be more of a problem - but the problem will be reliability. It will work, but at certain points they might get interference, or worse suddenly hear totally the wrong audio source. For bands that tour different venues, it will be luck if their systems work. I guess we could also ban DJs from having radio mics to do the 2m journey to their kit. Most I see could easily use a cable - that would put one channel back in the pool!

[Richard P-W]

The venue I mostly work at has a social club next door but their house rig seems to be only VHF.

 

I did get breakthrough once from a Karaoke night, on Ch69 - I moved to Ch70 which was totally clear!

 

As an aside, it's then a fun game to play with your LX op as you figure out which tune is being massacred by the punters :D

 

 

Back when I was working in London and providing FM transmitters for community RSL projects we used to get numerous problems with pirate stations. The usual response from the Radio Authority was "up your ERP" !

[sleah]

Now 4G is up and running, we'll have to watch out for new members signing up because they get strange noises on the radio systems.

 

Could be some mischeif to be had during a long performance..... powering up some Ch69 kit and playing havoc with the ignoramus's with their 'phones on ;)

 

It's not like they're going to complain their signal was all over the place during the performance. Would they?? :o

[Richard P-W]

Now 4G is up and running, we'll have to watch out for new members signing up because they get strange noises on the radio systems.

 

The only 4G network in the UK at the moment is EE, which runs on 1800MHz. The 800MHz spectrum hasn't been sold yet and I'm not aware of any handsets on the market that will work in the 800Mhz band - why build one if it has nothing to communicate with?