Audio Recording

jkerry wrote on 5/21/2006, 2:49 PM
Not sure if this is the correct forum.

What I have is that when I go to make our sermons videos, We are using a VHF wireless mic, it is connected to a Celab Audio/Video Amp which then go the to 2 other cameras.

I have been getting a lot of outside radio station interference. Yesterday I had to stop recording completely due to to interference.

Is their a way to stop this from happening while recording?

Jeff

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/21/2006, 3:07 PM
There are a lot of good UHF wireless systems available now that avoid the commercial bands altogether. That being said, a good VHF system should be rejecting most everything other than other mics that might happen to be on the same frequency in a close area, which is usually very unlikely.

I don't want to make any aspersions on your VHF system, but i would recommend upgrading to something better. Usually anything that lists under $400 for a mic, transmitter, and receiver is pretty much useless. The fact that you're getting that kind of interference indicates that you have low grade receivers that are tuning in a large range of frequencies rather than being carefully tuned to the transmitters. If you're hearing commercial radio interference then you actually have FM systems that are far worse even than VHF. Someone may have sold you a line of bull along with cheaper systems.

In our church we have a few Shure LX systems that are true diversity* and operate in the 176MHz band. We also have a couple of their newer UHF systems which i think are 900MHz. The VHF systems cost around $500 each and our interference experience with them has been an occasional tiny static crackle perhaps no more than once a year. The UHF systems have yet to experience any interference at all, but they were around $700 each. Note that the systems we have are pretty much cheap bottom-of-the-line equipment. Looking at Shure's website i see their new UR series UHF systems run in the $3900 to $7300 range (ouch).

Check out ebay. I often see used LX systems in good condition selling for $200 or less.

*Diversity systems transmit on two frequencies simultaneously. The receivers pick up both signals and instantaneously switch between them to always bring in the clearest signal possible. This alone eliminates most of the common problems.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 5/22/2006, 6:34 PM
Not really the correct forum. You need to find a AV forum somewhere (Celab ?).

The problem is probably interference in radio spectrum, or ground-loops between camera/Celab gear/computer.

geoff
rraud wrote on 5/24/2006, 5:17 PM
"Usually"... wireless interference results in clicks, crackels, pops and/or momentary or total loss of signal. If the radio station is low level in the background, this is more likley caused by cheap or unshieled mic cable.
Get a higher quality wireless system as Chien suggested.

Addendum: "Diversity systems transmit on two frequencies simultaneously.
To clarify:This is not totally correct unless: There are two separtate transmitters and a single two-channel, two-output receiver... but these are not called a "Diversity" system. A Diversity system essentally has two receivers in the same housing with two attennae.
Usually "Ratio Diversity" or the lower cost "Switched Diversity". In a nutshell this is to elliminate multi-path cansellations.