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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB Lounge => Topic started by: Bob Charest on July 01, 2014, 03:00:03 PM

Title: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Bob Charest on July 01, 2014, 03:00:03 PM
Hi,

I've seen a number of threads recently where posters are asking about wireless issues, and are trying to get a good result... but a number of times, I saw the number of units being used as an almost (to me anyways) determining factor. So, I thought I'd share an experience I had this past weekend as an example.

We played three different events in a row in a venue along the Maine coast (beautiful venue, beautiful view, beautiful weather, great clients...) It was really tons of fun. The A/V tech at the venue and I worked to make sure that my wireless transmitters were off during their ceremonial portions of the event. They were using three wireless units on the 2nd & 3rd days. All their wireless mics are in the 500MHz range as are our IEM transmitters.

On day three, we had a little extra time, and the A/V tech provided me with the 6 frequencies that were already set when he took over. I used my IAS and found direct hits on two of the units, and this was while I was entering the frequencies in use and had only gotten to frequency #4, IIRC.

So, in the spirit of collegiality, I ran a wireless coordination for him. They're using Shure UHF-R gear (Receivers are UR4D+.) The coordination yielded 21 concurrent frequencies that were available.

Moral of the story: The 'sum & difference' physics of RF can bite you with real unhappy results even in a setup with only a few (5 or so) units.

One other thing: We played a commencement dance at one of the colleges here in Maine, and I'm glad I didn't just think "Oh, there's not been any new DTV activity up here" as when I checked against the FCC database in the IAS I had three direct hits from nearby TV stations and had to change three of our mics - two for the lead singers.

I'm thinking that even for small operators like myself, if you want to play in the RF sandbox, minimal things to have are: Coordination software (free or otherwise,) RF scanners (we use the TTi PSA1301T which covers from 150KHz to 1300MHz,) and a WiFi scanner that shows all the 2.4 & 5GHz activity. That seems to be what I need to survive.

Best regards,
Bob Charest
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Pete Erskine on July 01, 2014, 03:45:18 PM
I'm thinking that even for small operators like myself, if you want to play in the RF sandbox, minimal things to have are: Coordination software (free or otherwise,) RF scanners (we use the TTi PSA1301T which covers from 150KHz to 1300MHz,) and a WiFi scanner that shows all the 2.4 & 5GHz activity. That seems to be what I need to survive.

You are so right, Bob,

Especially when you are in an event like yours with other users. 
Remember: RF coordination protects YOU. BE PROACTIVE AND DO IT.

After Touring for a couple of years with the same act visiting over a hundred cities, with almost 40 frequencies (Not a lot and no comm) the coordination process obviously was mandatory.  I fell into a routine which made the process painless.  The "RF Coordination for Roadies" (http://www.bestaudio.com/Freq_coord.htm) booklet was the result.  Please, be my guest and Download it for free.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Bob Charest on July 01, 2014, 03:46:30 PM
After Touring for a couple of years with the same act visiting over a hundred cities, with almost 40 frequencies (Not a lot and no comm) the coordination process obviously was mandatory.  I fell into a routine which made the process painless.  The "RF Coordination for Roadies" (http://www.bestaudio.com/Freq_coord.htm) booklet was the result.  Please, be my guest and Download it for free.
++1
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Lyle Williams on July 01, 2014, 04:00:08 PM
Thanks Pete.  A lot of experience is captured in that booklet.  For many casual wireless users their planning falls down at the "is my chosen frequency already in use" stage, way before the more subtle issues.  :-)
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Scott Helmke on July 01, 2014, 05:19:29 PM
Wireless coordination is definitely something people should be doing... and with Shure's Wireless Workbench 6 there's a pretty good free program for doing it. I still prefer IAS for big projects, but WWB6 is pretty capable (multiple manufacturers supported) and I think there's no excuse not to have a copy.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Jerome Malsack on July 01, 2014, 06:04:52 PM
I saw you were saying a wifi tracking device and did not see any mention on a good program to work with. 

So I have seen and heard from others that Inssider was a good tool and have been using this and agree
with this as a good tool to download and use.    http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/


Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Justice C. Bigler on July 01, 2014, 09:05:05 PM
I still prefer IAS for big projects, but WWB6 is pretty capable (multiple manufacturers supported) and I think there's no excuse not to have a copy.

Check out RF Guru (https://stageresearch.com/products/RFGuru/Default.aspx) for $79.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Nitin Sidhu on July 02, 2014, 05:31:09 AM
Check out RF Guru (https://stageresearch.com/products/RFGuru/Default.aspx) for $79.

Hello Justice!

What advantage would RF Guru be over WWB6 ?

Thank you.

Regards,
Sidhu
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Mac Kerr on July 02, 2014, 01:27:45 PM
What advantage would RF Guru be over WWB6 ?

If all you want is frequency coordination I would go with the free WWB6. The main advantage of RF Guru is the mic tracking for theater productions. RF Guru is aimed at theater use, and includes lots of features for both managing mics in a given location, and moving a production to various cities. WWB6 only does coordination of most popular mics and IEMs, and control of Shure mics and IEMs.

Mac
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Justice C. Bigler on July 02, 2014, 03:55:15 PM
Hello Justice!

What advantage would RF Guru be over WWB6 ?

Thank you.

Regards,
Sidhu


Admittedly, I haven't used WWB. I was under the impression that it only had access to Shure equipment.


Also, I don't know that any of this software will work in India (at least when comparing known TV channels)
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Pete Erskine on July 02, 2014, 04:16:43 PM
Admittedly, I haven't used WWB. I was under the impression that it only had access to Shure equipment.

WWB can only remote control Shure equipment but it can coordinate any other product and has many already in it's database.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Nitin Sidhu on July 03, 2014, 03:56:48 AM
Thank you!

That was my impression too. I am demoing RF Guru, and simultaneously using WWB, and for frequency coordination see that that WWB pretty much does it all. In addition to the benefit of networking to shure equipment when available. Like RF Guru, I will still have to manually make profiles for most non Shure wl gear.

And yes, there is nothing that does TV channels in India. In fact, I have been trying to find a source which at least lists frequencies of local broadcast, but cant find any. (Most TV in india is DTH or cable, and local broadcast will be restricted to the state owned tv channels, still) What little info I find suggests local TV broadcast is in the VHF band.

So I am interested in the RF scanner though, I have the RF Explorer, and can use it with RF Scanner to generate csv reports, which I can 'hopefully' import into WWB ? Would this be possible. The demo of RF scanner does not seem to generate any reports.

Regards,
Sidhu
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Kevin Maxwell on July 03, 2014, 10:11:53 AM
Thank you!

That was my impression too. I am demoing RF Guru, and simultaneously using WWB, and for frequency coordination see that that WWB pretty much does it all. In addition to the benefit of networking to shure equipment when available. Like RF Guru, I will still have to manually make profiles for most non Shure wl gear.

And yes, there is nothing that does TV channels in India. In fact, I have been trying to find a source which at least lists frequencies of local broadcast, but cant find any. (Most TV in india is DTH or cable, and local broadcast will be restricted to the state owned tv channels, still) What little info I find suggests local TV broadcast is in the VHF band.

So I am interested in the RF scanner though, I have the RF Explorer, and can use it with RF Scanner to generate csv reports, which I can 'hopefully' import into WWB ? Would this be possible. The demo of RF scanner does not seem to generate any reports.

Regards,
Sidhu

I have been told (by Shure) that WWB6 does have the ability to import CSV files but the only time I tried it was at home and my WinRadio scanner didn’t find any frequencies with the parameters I gave it. so I had no data in the file to import.

I have had Shure UHF-R wireless to use as the scanner (in WWB) so I haven’t spent any more time trying to get CSV file importation to work. I will have to try that myself again soon.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Jason Glass on July 03, 2014, 11:47:58 AM
So I am interested in the RF scanner though, I have the RF Explorer, and can use it with RF Scanner to generate csv reports, which I can 'hopefully' import into WWB ? Would this be possible. The demo of RF scanner does not seem to generate any reports.

Regards,
Sidhu

For WWB6 CSV import, you just need to make sure that the CSV file contents have no header row, and that the 1st column contains frequencies in MHz to three decimal places, and the second column contains amplitudes in dBm.  It works very well.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Mac Kerr on July 03, 2014, 11:52:57 AM
For WWB6 CSV import, you just need to make sure that the CSV file contents have no header row, and that the 1st column contains frequencies in MHz to three decimal places, and the second column contains amplitudes in dBm.  It works very well.

Does the data from the CSV file impact the frequencies WWB6 will offer, or is it only a display that you have to keep in mind as you do a coord?

Mac
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Jason Glass on July 03, 2014, 12:02:50 PM
Does the data from the CSV file impact the frequencies WWB6 will offer, or is it only a display that you have to keep in mind as you do a coord?

Mac

You can drag a threshold up or down on the graph and it will exclude from coordination any part of spectrum where the imported trace is above the threshold.

It really is the most bad-to-the-bone freeware that I've ever seen.  I've successfully used CSV data from Signal Hound, RF Explorer, and WinRadio to coord with it.  It's quirky with non-Shure gear, but works great when you build your own equipment model specs based on IAS parameters and experience.  Who can blame Shure for that?  When used with an Axient Spectrum Manager and Axient gear, it's nothing short of awesome.

I still prefer IAS for large coords, though.  The workflow is smoother, especially when you must constantly recoordinate small parts of the whole show as your requirements change.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Steve Oldridge on July 03, 2014, 02:28:05 PM
Wireless coordination is definitely something people should be doing... and with Shure's Wireless Workbench 6 there's a pretty good free program for doing it. I still prefer IAS for big projects, but WWB6 is pretty capable (multiple manufacturers supported) and I think there's no excuse not to have a copy.

Given that all the threads I have read here on the topic are telling me that the 10 devices my band is using is an accident waiting to happen,   I would love to see/have a "RF Coordination for Dummies" step-by-step guide put together for us weekend warrior types as Peter Erskine's guide is great.. but I don't have $2k for IAS + RF scanner and there must be another way to get the same outcomes!
 
I'd hazard that once one has done this (as with many things) it's not overly complex, but getting the pieces-parts going has me stumped.

Yes, I installed WWB6 on my home PC, updated the inventory for TV stations in my zip (50 mile radius), added 4 Shure IEM devices the band uses. I need to add other devices not listed in the default inventory and cannot find (via google) other vendors specs to import.  The coordination screen showed the TV frequencies plots... but what equipment do I need to get scans going and how do I use the resulting data?

so... Starting from scratch...

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm probably not the only complete noob at this!
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Nitin Sidhu on July 03, 2014, 02:49:39 PM
. I've successfully used CSV data from Signal Hound, RF Explorer, and WinRadio to coord with it.  It's quirky with non-Shure gear, but works great when you build your own equipment model specs based on IAS parameters and experience.  Who can blame Shure for that?  When used with an Axient Spectrum Manager and Axient gear, it's nothing short of awesome.

This all is great news!

Jason, what did you use to import csv data from RF xplorer, and where can we get model specs for IAS ? Thank you very much.

Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Nitin Sidhu on July 03, 2014, 02:56:28 PM

  • what hardware.. assume laptop WITH WIRELESS networking capability ??
  • what software to use (answered in this thread, and others)
  • how do I (or can I) scan the RF frequencies (without an EXPENSIVE scanner listed in Mr. Erksine's doc) for the devices I'm using at the gig ?
  • I can scan the 2.4/5Ghz devices using apps on an Android/iDevice, but how to I sync that data with the 500-700 Mhz devices discovered in the RF scan ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm probably not the only complete noob at this!

Steve, I got interested in WL coordination with 2 WL units that were a disaster. If you were to read the thread again, you would know :

1. Shure's WWB or RF guru are great cheap WL coordination softwares.
2. You still need hardware (never free) to find RF. The RF Explorer is cheap.

Regards,
Sidhu[/list]
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Mac Kerr on July 03, 2014, 04:01:53 PM
Given that all the threads I have read here on the topic are telling me that the 10 devices my band is using is an accident waiting to happen,   I would love to see/have a "RF Coordination for Dummies" step-by-step guide put together for us weekend warrior types as Peter Erskine's guide is great.. but I don't have $2k for IAS + RF scanner and there must be another way to get the same outcomes!
 
I'd hazard that once one has done this (as with many things) it's not overly complex, but getting the pieces-parts going has me stumped.

Yes, I installed WWB6 on my home PC, updated the inventory for TV stations in my zip (50 mile radius), added 4 Shure IEM devices the band uses. I need to add other devices not listed in the default inventory and cannot find (via google) other vendors specs to import.  The coordination screen showed the TV frequencies plots... but what equipment do I need to get scans going and how do I use the resulting data?

so... Starting from scratch...
  • what hardware.. assume laptop WITH WIRELESS networking capability ??
  • what software to use (answered in this thread, and others)
  • how do I (or can I) scan the RF frequencies (without an EXPENSIVE scanner listed in Mr. Erksine's doc) for the devices I'm using at the gig ?
  • I can scan the 2.4/5Ghz devices using apps on an Android/iDevice, but how to I sync that data with the 500-700 Mhz devices discovered in the RF scan ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm probably not the only complete noob at this!

An RF spectrum analyzer is great if you have one, but you can do a good job without one. Using WWB6 and paying attention to your receivers once you have then tuned to coordinated frequencies may be all you need. The important part is eliminating TV channel interference, and intermodulation interference, both of which are done with WWB.

Use WWB to eliminate possible DTV channels, and then add the devices you want to coordinate. Let it pick plenty of spare frequencies. Tune your devices to every other recommended frequency to start with, then turn on all of your mic receivers and IEM transmitters, and look for stray RF on the RF meters of the mics. It is best to keep your IEM frequencies as far from your mic frequencies as you can. If you have a mic showing RF, try one of your spare frequencies. Once you have done that, turn on all your mic transmitters. Now turn off the mic transmitters one at a time and see if you are still interference clear. If not, turn off others till you find the problem child. Try a spare freq on the problem child, and go back and start with turning off mic 1 again. Once you make a change you have to check everything from the beginning again. When all the mics are clear when turned off one at a time you have done as much as you can with just WWB.

It is possible to use one of your mic receivers as a scanner with WWB, but it will only scan in its own band split.

Mac
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Steve Oldridge on July 03, 2014, 04:27:02 PM
An RF spectrum analyzer is great if you have one, but you can do a good job without one. Using WWB6 and paying attention to your receivers once you have then tuned to coordinated frequencies may be all you need. The important part is eliminating TV channel interference, and intermodulation interference, both of which are done with WWB.

Thanks Mac, this appears to be the important part... guess I'm just going to have to try it on the laptop at the net gig and seem what happens !
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: David Sturzenbecher on July 03, 2014, 05:44:11 PM

You can drag a threshold up or down on the graph and it will exclude from coordination any part of spectrum where the imported trace is above the threshold.

It really is the most bad-to-the-bone freeware that I've ever seen.  I've successfully used CSV data from Signal Hound, RF Explorer, and WinRadio to coord with it.  It's quirky with non-Shure gear, but works great when you build your own equipment model specs based on IAS parameters and experience.  Who can blame Shure for that?  When used with an Axient Spectrum Manager and Axient gear, it's nothing short of awesome.

I still prefer IAS for large coords, though.  The workflow is smoother, especially when you must constantly recoordinate small parts of the whole show as your requirements change.

You can add .csv data from a TTi PSA scanner to the list of devices which will work with WWB6


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Bob Charest on July 04, 2014, 09:41:57 AM
I saw you were saying a wifi tracking device and did not see any mention on a good program to work with. 

So I have seen and heard from others that Inssider was a good tool and have been using this and agree
with this as a good tool to download and use.    http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
Hi Jerome,

The Wi-Fi scanner I use is Wifi Analyzer on a Nexus7 tablet. Inexpensive on the Google play store.

It is certainly not needed for working with our mics and IEM units, but we also have 5GHz comm in place for wireless mixing and for members to control their IEM mixes, so, for us, it is essential.

Best regards,
Bob
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Rob Spence on July 04, 2014, 04:12:15 PM

  • I can scan the 2.4/5Ghz devices using apps on an Android/iDevice, but how to I sync that data with the 500-700 Mhz devices discovered in the RF scan ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm probably not the only complete noob at this!

You don't need to sync 2.4 & 5 gHz stuff with your 500-700 MHz stuff.

Unless you have 2.4gHz microphones, you might not care.
Personally, I avoid the use of anything in that band.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Steve Oldridge on July 04, 2014, 10:05:03 PM

You don't need to sync 2.4 & 5 gHz stuff with your 500-700 MHz stuff.

Unless you have 2.4gHz microphones, you might not care.
Personally, I avoid the use of anything in that band.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Rob.. thanks, but other than the drummer, the rest use Line6 G series wireless. They are all 2.4Ghz range... a g50, 2*G30 and a G90.  So I believe I should be sync'ing them with each other in that band.. even tho' not with the 500-700 stuff.
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Rob Spence on July 04, 2014, 11:54:51 PM

Rob.. thanks, but other than the drummer, the rest use Line6 G series wireless. They are all 2.4Ghz range... a g50, 2*G30 and a G90.  So I believe I should be sync'ing them with each other in that band.. even tho' not with the 500-700 stuff.

I am not familiar with the issues of coordinating the Line6 gear. My worry is the several hundred interference sources that show up after sound check when the doors open.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Wireless Coordination, not just useful...
Post by: Scott Helmke on July 05, 2014, 10:01:03 AM
Another RF "scanner" that works with WWB6 is the PSM1000 system. You can scan with a beltpack, then IR upload that to the transmitter, then suck that into WWB6.

For places where there's no government database for WWB6 to look up, you can just type in "exclusions" including frequency ranges. So if you know what channels are broadcasting you should be able to work back to frequencies. Then you can save that as a show file to use as a starting point for coordinating different systems.

In our shop we've got IAS on a show laptop and on the warehouse computer, but since everybody already has WWB6 on their own computer most small (less than 10-20 channels) coordinations get done in WWB6.