What does one do about spread spectrum interference that pops up out of the blue, just before or during a show?
The situation:I support the US Air Force Band in Washington, DC where high level individuals attend that have secret service or other security present. I have never had a problem until last night. You could say "your luck finally ran out" as a minute or two before the show all 8 IEMs started taking sever hits.
Take a look at this video
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B10H8698n_C4Z194a0t1MWRHS1k. It will come into focus the last 18 seconds. You are looking at four of the eight IEMs and what I believe to be the frequency-hopping spread spectrum inference, most likely connected to the secret service's communications.
The Weeds:At this point in my post, I'll get into the weeds of what I was able to do so anyone that wants to respond can provide accurate help.
I started looking up and down the spectrum (Sennheiser B range). The frequency hopping was happening in the whole block except for what appeared to be ~5 MHz at 630 MHz. Grabbed the monitor engineer's and my pack to re-tune and was able to swap out with the vocals between tunes. The band wasn't so lucky.
The band was driven out into the performance area in two open-top military trucks for three songs. Their gear was all running on UPS during transit from out-of-view and then temporarily plugged in (power and audio). The decision had been made before I came on-board to have everyone on IEMs to reduce the current draw on the UPSs. I didn't argue because there were so few frequencies to coordinate.
In this situation, what do you do? All was happy 30 minutes before the show while walking around the parade field. I doubt the secret service will share any information pre load-in.
Thank for your input.
PS. First time to post a video link. Let me know if it doesn't work.
