Everybody needs a little help from time to time and CareySounds trained staff is at your service when things go awry. We excel at troubleshooting complicated system problems that crop up from time to time in even the best designed systems.

We have designed an online system to get you the help you need as quickly as possible. You will find the new link to our service department in our popular Quick Links section on the right sidebar of this home page. You don’t need to be a current CareySound customer to take advantage of this valuable service. We welcome all requests.

Please also feel free to avail yourself of the help files in our Help Archive that is full of technical solutions. A link to this section can be conveniently found on the top of each web page on our site.

I just received an email from Karl Winkler of Lectosonics, Inc., a company that makes some of the best wireless products in the industry, that I would like to share with you.

Good Points - I just ran across your paper on using wireless microphones. Thank you for putting this out there - the more information and knowledge, the better. I agree with almost everything in the article, but I wanted to make two points:

Karl is referring to an article from my Technically Speaking Series from a few years back that can be found in our Help Archive titled “Wireless Microphones - A Technically Speaking article on wireless basics.” that you can find by clicking here.

1. Rechargeable battery technology has evolved considerably in the past 10 years to the point where these can be used with confidence today. Rather than warn everyone away from using them, it might be more useful to encourage people to do some tests for themselves. The main thing to consider when using rechargeable batteries is "battery management". This is the process of purchasing, labeling, using, recharging, and ultimately disposing these batteries when needed. Higher capacity batteries won't take as many charges. I personally recommend disposing rechargeable batteries once per quarter. This will still save an enormous amount of money vs. disposable batteries.

Karl makes a valid point. There have been many advances in rechargeable batteries since our article was written. Transmitters live or die by their power source making quality batteries a must, it's one of the, not necessarily obvious, total costs of owning a wireless system. The NiCad batteries our original article alluded to just didn't have what it took to properly operate a power hungry wireless transmitter. Recent advances in rechargeable batteries have produced batteries that provide the requisite power but as Karl pointed out they do come with a sizable amount of caveats.

We would like you to keep the following in mind considering batteries. The vast majority of our wireless customers volunteer novices and not professional users and don't have the time or the inclination to develop a battery management system. Our number one service call for wireless systems is still dead batteries. Even as a professional user CareySound still uses a new battery for every performance. It's just the cost of doing wireless. We feel the benefit of doing so far exceeds the risk of a system going down in a performance because of a low or dead battery and it is still our professional recommendation to install a new battery each time you use your wireless system.

2. Modern UHF (and even good-quality VHF) should not be affected by fluorescent lights, motors and the like. True - very inexpensive systems might be. The only real sources of interference for good-quality wireless systems are: other transmissions in the band, including TV and other wireless, and intermods from these same sources.

Again Karl makes a great point, modern wireless systems are largely immune from the spurious electrical emissions from florescent lights, motors and electrical appliances that plagued earlier systems. You generally should not experience interference with most modern wirelesses when using one or two new systems, but vast improvements in the quality in this new gear have created a new challenge.

The popularity and propagation of wireless systems has lead to a host of new issues. First as more users addd more and more wireless to their systems it is essential that they be installed correctly and not just thrown together and placed any old where as in the attached pictures.

Yep - You see these pictures right. We found these wirelesses stacked UNDER a pew in a church.

Secondly the spectrum of frequencies that these systems operate on has become increasingly crowded and more complex. Wireless microphones now share many more sources of potential interference from digital television (which now uses essentially 100% of its allotted range) to wireless personal in-ear monitoring systems and this is only going to get worse if the FCC lets consumer electronic manufactures into our current white space as has been proposed.

It is more important than ever to carefully consider your wireless requirements with a professional and not to impugn the integrity of your local radio shack, music store and ebay searches but they just do not qualify as a wireless professional. You can still end up with issues no matter how hi-tech or expensive your hardware is if it is deployed or set-up improperly. The best choice you can make in a wireless system remains not in what gear you buy but from whom you get your advice.

Again, thanks for the good article, and also thanks for considering my points. Sincerely, Karl Winkler Lectrosonics, Inc.

Tags: Wireless microphone

...how to make the most out a service call.

John took a service call this morning and it brought to mind these thoughts that I want to share. CareySound has been helping customers troubleshoot tech issues for a long time. It’s our experience that half of all issues can be solved over the phone and we have some suggestions to help you get back up and running as quickly as possible.

Before your call CareySound:

1. Is everything plugged-in securely? Not only make sure that it everything is plugged into a working power source but that all interconnecting wires tightly connected
2. Are all of the pieces of the system turned on? Make sure all of your gear is turned on. It’s not uncommon for one piece of gear in your equipment chain to have inadvertently been switched off.
3. If something requires a battery (i.e. a wireless microphone transmitter) is the battery good and fully charged? Low or dead batteries is our number one service call related to hearing impaired and wireless systems.
4. Make sure you are near the equipment you are having problems with and have complete access to the front and back of all interconnected gear. We will want make and model numbers and will ask you to perform a series of tests. You will be our eyes and ears during our session.

After you get us on the phone:

1. Stay calm. Don’t wait until the last minute to call. Get there early and power the system up to spot issues well BEFORE everybody else arrives. We will inevitably ask you try things that you won’t want an audience to have to sit through or listen to.
2. Listen carefully and don’t become distracted. For us to be the most effective you need to let us lead the procedure. If possible call us with a cell phone and use a hands free option if you have it, you will need your hands free to adjust and move things. It is even better if you have one that can take and send us pictures.
3. Don’t jump ahead. We will be asking you a series of questions and asking you to perform simple operations that will not give reliable results if you try to second guess us and do something out of order or that we have not asked you to do.

It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to print out this article and keep it posted with your system along with our phone number so it will be handy if a problem happens. If you are already a customer and don’t already have our direct cell numbers call your sales agent.

Having CareySound as your audio company has its’ perks. Here’s hoping that you don’t need to call but in case you do our office phone number is (336) 292-8282.