Comms

[top-cat]

a weeks hire would be about £100.

 

Bear in mind there are quite a lot of companies out there who set up their rental business to service theatre and have ended up doing predominantly corporates and do not need their comms as much as they once did. So if you speak to them and say "we can give you £x for a week's hire" - they may see it as money for old rope and take whatever they can get.

 

That said, sucks as it does for amdram etc, £100 in our industry is pocket change and doesn't get you very much at all. If a company is busy enough with what they're doing, they'll be reluctant to create themselves more work to do for little income.

 

So it's always worth asking. The OP could speak to Startech in Osney Mead Oxford, they definitely have a good stock of Tecpro kit and are generally happy to help local groups where they can - after all Oxfordshire is rife with amateurs, students etc - it is a good theatre scene. If you tell them what you need and what you can afford, the worst they can do is say no, but in my experience they try to be constructive.

[themadhippy]

wot happened to the days of old telephone handsets and a big battery?

[top-cat]

The kids don't know how to use telephones. They don't have touch screens.

[pmiller056]

I do a fair bit of work with a local community theatre. We are in a suburban area and have successfully used PMR466 kit for a few years, with few interference problems (hint use a higher numbered channel!). Kit can be free to borrow from theatre members families and kids :-) They are adequate for use in offstage (dressing room, FOH etc) areas, but are hard to use around the stage, where a wired, full duplex system with good quality headsets is best. These radios use a multitude of different headphone/ microphone connectors and PTT arrangements, so unless appropriate accessories are provided with the radio, don't assume you can get something afterwards. Headsets for these radios do not generally block out ambient noise and they can also leak out a lot of noise for the audience to hear. I don't know of an affordable radio based system which will allow full duplex operation for the stage manager who is also the stage crew and runner! If you are struggling, the telephone and battery system (with a calling light!) works well - but the Blueclone system works very well and is affordable for Amateur Theatre if the system is built in stages as cash permits. (PTT = Push to Talk).

 

If you are using radios, a bit of operator training also will help you get the best from them. All radio systems take (a short) time to 'wake up' from end to end after the PTT is pressed. Teach people to push the button, silently count to two and then say what they have to - this avoids numerous repeats because the first two words have been cut off by the radios. Be careful with words used - 'No' will sound like 'Go' at the side of a noisy stage (and will get lost if you are too quick for the radio). And so on. Take care (and check!) around sound equipment to make sure that the radios will not affect any microphones when they transmit.

 

Peter

[paulears]

Nice as those radios are, I suspect you won't be able to use them in the UK without a licence. The PMR frequencies will require type approved kit, and these radios will probably not haVe that approval as they can work on non-PMR frequencies.

 

rubbish.

 

PMR446 are not 'special' frequencies. Any programmable radio working in the same frequency band can be programmed to PMR446 frequencies.

 

Hence I said " just make sure you buy the USB lead, if you don't then you can't program them with UK legal frequencies."

 

 

TC - he said PMR, as in the Chinese radios on ebay that operate in either the VHF high band, or UHF band around 455MHz. He is ABSOLUTELY correct. PMR446 is a non-licence band, like the ch 70 radio mic band. PMR446 is NOT the same as PMR. In fact, many PMR device cannot use the PMR446 band even if they wished to, because the 6 channels are offset from the norm, are 6.25KHz channels, and the PMR sets splatter over channels either side.

 

Very few PMR sets will operate in the 446Mhz band anyway, although some do - so your USB programming lead won't work, you can't enter the PMR446 numbers!

 

Using a PMR set on PMR446 is also illegal operation for a number of reasons - power output too high and aerials that detach are the main issue. My vehicle mounted set can blast 50W or so onto the PMR446 channels if I wished, but real PMR446 radios seem to receive it on 3 channels, and the ones next to these have unpleasant co-channel interference - so they are not happy together.

 

In the old days, getting a PMR license was tricky and involved an inspection and test - and a check against type approvals. Now it's more like self-certification. I have a hire license and unless my equipment causes grief to others, there really isn't anyone to come along and check the type approval - and as most kit easily meets the old standards that were tough, the equipment seems to be accepted as meeting the specification, even if not actually tested via the proof houses.

 

So sorry to Rubbish your Rubbish - but you don't quite understand radios and the differences between the bands.

[JTilling]

Hi. Many thanks for all the replies! Certainly lots of things for me to look into. I spoke to a hire company who have recommended Motorola DP3400's plus headsets, charger, cables, belt clips, batteries etc. This all comes in at under £100 for a weeks hire of 6! this seems pretty good to me! I simply told them that I had a fairly small venue and that I would need 6 radios to cover around about 1000m maximum.

Would these be suitable?

 

Thanks!

[benwillcox]

Hi. Many thanks for all the replies! Certainly lots of things for me to look into. I spoke to a hire company who have recommended Motorola DP3400's plus headsets, charger, cables, belt clips, batteries etc. This all comes in at under £100 for a weeks hire of 6! this seems pretty good to me! I simply told them that I had a fairly small venue and that I would need 6 radios to cover around about 1000m maximum.

Would these be suitable?

 

Thanks!

 

We normally hire in Motorola GP340 or equivalent analogue radios with headset, charger etc for about £10 a week each and would be fine for what you need. The DP3400 is a digital radio and I'm sure in your application would also do what you need, although I've noticed with those that there's an annoying delay on keying

before you get the 'ready to talk' beep. That's progress for you I suppose!

 

Ben

[boatman]

Hi. Many thanks for all the replies! Certainly lots of things for me to look into. I spoke to a hire company who have recommended Motorola DP3400's plus headsets, charger, cables, belt clips, batteries etc. This all comes in at under £100 for a weeks hire of 6! this seems pretty good to me! I simply told them that I had a fairly small venue and that I would need 6 radios to cover around about 1000m maximum.

Would these be suitable?

 

Thanks!

 

... and with the other £100 that your budget allowed invest in some BlueClone parts & PCBs. After a week of using radios you'll be desperate to have a wired system.

[dbuckley]

Nice as those radios are, I suspect you won't be able to use them in the UK without a licence. The PMR frequencies will require type approved kit, and these radios will probably not haVe that approval as they can work on non-PMR frequencies.

rubbish. PMR446 are not 'special' frequencies. Any programmable radio working in the same frequency band can be programmed to PMR446 frequencies.

That is absolutely true. It's easy to programme many radios to work on PMR446. But is it LEGAL (in the UK) to so do?

 

Looking at notice RA357 from the UK government, it says:

 

5. RADIO EQUIPMENT

PMR 446 radio equipment must be handportable, have an integral antenna, have a maximum ERP of 500 mW and be compliant with ETS 300 296.

 

PMR 446 radio equipment must use the above frequencies only. Radio equipment which can operate on any other frequency, including Short Range Business Radio (SRBR) equipment capable of using frequencies in the 461 MHz band, must not be used for the PMR 446 service.

 

Do the radios you linked to comply with these restrictions? They are tunable over 400-470MHz so it is "Radio equipment which can operate on any other frequency" so that is strike 1. Does it have a maximum ERP of 500mW? On low power it is rated at 1W, and thus most unlikely to meet a 500mW ERP restriction even on low power, let alone high power. Strike 2. How about compliant with ETS 300 296? I have no idea if they are or not, but they don't say they are, and if push came to shove, one would have to prove that they were compliant, so lets call that Strike 3.

 

Thus I would offer the opinion that to use one of these radios on the PMR446 frequencies in the UK is not legal, and thus if one were to so do, one could be found guilty of operating unlicensed transmission equipment contrary to Section 1 of Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, attracting a maximum penalty of £5000 and/or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, plus confiscation of the equipment, see RA67.

 

So going back to my original comment:

 

Nice as those radios are, I suspect you won't be able to use them in the UK without a licence.

Thus it seems I am bang on the money. Which is a bit of a stretch from "rubbish".

[top-cat]

Sorry in this case I am wrong, I had been wrongly informed by a radio equipment supplier that using tuneable radios on PMR446 bands on a power setting under 500mW was ample.

 

To be honest I think the ruling is a bit stupid, the law should be based on how the kit is actually used, not how it could be used. After all, cars which can break the speed limit are not illegal, but breaking the speed limit in them would be.

[cedd]

We hired six Motorola GP340's last year and managed to get them for £5 a week. That included chargers. Maybe buy your own earpieces and treat them as disposable items as TC suggested. By hiring you get a much higher power set (5W) than PMR446 which is far more likely to make its' way around your building. We managed 2 way comms from within a granite church (granite really doesn't like radio!), across a car park and in to another very sturdy stone built building. At work we manage even more than that, often from the basement of one building to another building.

 

I don't know who's around you, but Ninehundred Comms up in Doncaster are very very good and they'll happily courier them to you.

 

PMR446 is a standard, not just a set of frequencies, that's the big thing to remember and the thing that trips a lot of people up. Apart from anything else the type approval for the equipment will require it be CE compliant (Think that's a general W-T Act thing more than anything else). It'd be interesting to see if the cheaper Chinese ones really are CE compliant.

 

One Chinese brand that I would strongly recommend are Hytera. We now own a few hundred of their licensed sets, and they're fantastic. They're even fireman-proof which is quite something! I've no reason to think that their PMR446 sets would be any less robust.

Also remember that business licenses aren't actually that much money - £75 for 5 years. At £15 a year that's not bad going and if you're thinking about buying then it's well worth it to get the increased power. It also tends to open up a world of slightly better built sets.