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