sunray Posted June 10, 2020 Share Posted June 10, 2020 But +1 to Jon’s suggestion of a drum of cat5....Totally, I never use radio if there is a sensible way with cable, I've lost count of the number of 200m drums of 4pr telephone cable and more recently 1000ft boxes of cat 5 I've got through. The job I referred to earlier started out at difficult to run cable between the 5 zones but as the site became more developed with buildings the routes appeared [and the clients restrictions waned]. ideally with a transformer to balance and isolate, will work absolutely fine at line level.Deffo plus one for the transformers for isolation, I regularly put them in as a matter of course, even when not really needed. And reasonable transformers are so cheap now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted June 11, 2020 Share Posted June 11, 2020 If you ever rehearse a digital network system, you still will not have catered for the attenuation and digital corruption of 2000 punters with their phones looking to find wi-fi, the effect of which only becomes apparent 20 minutes before show time. Find a sensible route to run cable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith_ Posted June 11, 2020 Author Share Posted June 11, 2020 True, Jivemasterthat is why I went off 2.4GHz. Cable is out because in this particular case, those punters cannot be stropped from trampling all over the cable and 200m of cable-cover would surely be extortionate and not the best. Pylons could carry the cable, but then I would need a whole load more poles and it gets tedious and expensive. I'm surprised there is no ready-made wireless solution for this, but there we are. K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted June 11, 2020 Share Posted June 11, 2020 Use a spade to slit the turf 4-6 inches deep, drop the cable in. About 2 hours for an unskilled person to cut and lay the cable... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith_ Posted June 11, 2020 Author Share Posted June 11, 2020 I kind of like that, Tom! Reminds me of this story - the Apollo space programme was immensely expensive, but a lot of inventions grew out of it. For example a team of engineers worked for years on a pen that could write in zero-G. Eventually they developed the pentel pumped biro - a great commercial success. Meanwhile the Russians took pencils. K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shez Posted June 11, 2020 Share Posted June 11, 2020 Meanwhile the Russians took pencils. There's a bit more to that story than normally gets told. Pencils shed tiny fragments of graphite, which in zero gravity float around and can find their way in to electronics. Graphite is of course a conductor... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstewart Posted June 11, 2020 Share Posted June 11, 2020 I'm surprised there is no ready-made wireless solution for this, but there we are. There's the Neutrik Xirium Pro system. It's a bit of a step up in price from your box of cat5... Philip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 There are many alternatives to cable, just that the wireless ones cost big money and need licencing and may still have some latency. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunray Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 There are many alternatives to cable, just that the wireless ones cost big money and need licencing and may still have some latency.Search for PMSE [program making special event]. Radio links are available in full broadcast quality in analogue FM with virtually invisible insersion. Unlike all of the other suggestions so far PMSE links are licensed and protected with a sterile geographical space. Yes professional kit to run stereo to a couple of stacks will be fairly costly [although cheaper versions such as spectrum communications are available] and the license for an event is likely to be knocking on £25 in band 1 [big aerials] or £50 in UHF for compact aerialsl.However any radio system is susceptible/vulnerable and I'll reiterate I'll always look for a more reliable cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeseweasel Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 In the past I've hired a couple of 1W link sets from Handheld Audio (on two separate frequencies for redundancy). It's just souped up Shure UHF-R radio mic kit with a more powerful transmitter, but it will absolutely meet your needs in terms of range and performance. The fact that it's based around radio mic kit means it's well suited to 'one-to-many' type links where you might need to send audio from one location to several speaker stacks, as you just tune another radio mic receiver into the correct frequency. Choose omni/paddle antennas as needed to suit your own system layout.https://www.handheldaudio.co.uk/hire-desk/hire-rate-card/ The Neturik Xirium system is great - the best-sounding wireless link system I've used, but when I did some tests with it in 2015 when it was first released, I couldn't get it to go 200m as a point-to-point link. Maybe it's better nowadays? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbotsmike Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 I'd probably go down the line of iem TX and rack mount radio mic Rx with suitable paddles, personally. We're fortunate enough to have the kit around to do it though, along with some decent antenna options! Made for the job stuff is xirium, and expensive. I don't know what range sennheiser quote for their radio mic receiver based wireless PA.... Next time I'm at the office and bored I might have a play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith_ Posted June 16, 2020 Author Share Posted June 16, 2020 Yes Mike, that's kind of where I started. Xirium is absolutely made for it and terrific stuff, but if, like me, you cannot afford that, then I am told great care is needed to match TX and RX which typically use different compression etc.. I never understood why those paddles (shark fins) cost so much when all they are really is a log-periodic printed on a circuit board (with maybe a balun or something like) to get <6dB. Not as good as a long (e.g. 14dB) Yagi, but I believe that would not be allowed by Ofcom. Since log-periodics are very wide band, one might as well use a digital TV antenna having UHF radio mic frequencies well within its scope (http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1993557.pdf). Is that not a viable option? At the moment, my radio mic tx (iem) and rx are from different manufacturers (maybe they could be traced back to the same Chinese factory, though), but I am interested to experiment with them (not had time yet). K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 I never understood why those paddles (shark fins) cost so much when all they are really is a log-periodic printed on a circuit board (with maybe a balun or something like) to get <6dB. Not as good as a long (e.g. 14dB) Yagi, but I believe that would not be allowed by Ofcom. I can understand that connecting a very directional antenna to a transmitter may fall foul of the regs, as you are increasing the ERP in that direction, but I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t make the receiver antenna as directional as you want... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunray Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 I never understood why those paddles (shark fins) cost so much when all they are really is a log-periodic printed on a circuit board (with maybe a balun or something like) to get <6dB. Not as good as a long (e.g. 14dB) Yagi, but I believe that would not be allowed by Ofcom. I can understand that connecting a very directional antenna to a transmitter may fall foul of the regs, as you are increasing the ERP in that direction, but I can't see any reason why you couldn't make the receiver antenna as directional as you want...If you can find an appropriate frequency range TV aerial they are a much cheaper option, I have some which I've cut down to 4 or 5 elements which are effective at around +5dB, I also have some wide band log periodic TV aerials [by the way no balun in a log periodic] albeit I've removed some of the longer redundant elements: https://www.alltrade.co.uk/shop/fracarro-lp45f-mini-log-periodic-wb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbotsmike Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 I haven't looked closely at the regs recently, but I believe the stuff for ch38 at least just specifies a transmit power, not where you're allowed to point the transmit power.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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