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[Kevin Maxwell]

Church wireless Etc. Rant

I am not sure where to put this under church, wireless or in the basement. Wherever it is that you are reading this is obviously where I decided to post it.

Yesterday I went to a church a friend attends and does the sound in. He is not a soundman and he admits his limitations. I was there to help him install and setup the X32 that they had just bought. I had met with him earlier in the week at his work, where he had the X32 setup and I tried to teach him all about it. I knew he didn’t have a lot of time that day (about 2hrs) and I think I tried to cover too much too fast. I could see the eyes glaze over part way thru it.

When I got to the church he had already dismantled the old mixer so I couldn’t listen to how it sounded. When we got it up and running the main music guy was thrilled at how it sounded. I basically said to him, whatever you do don’t go and listen to really good speakers because you will come back and never be happy with how this system sounds. There are so many things wrong in this church with the system it isn’t funny. Speakers hung from the wooden beams 1 on each side of the stage, in a way that there wasn’t anything done right. The bottom of the speakers are low enough that I could touch the bottom with a slight stretch. This in and of itself isn’t that big of an issue but on the stage a few feet behind them was another speaker completely different brand and model that had the speaker cable feeding that one first and then it went up to the hanging speaker. So the 2 speakers on the left were in parallel on one amp channel and the 2 on the right were in parallel on the other amp channel. I told him it might sound better if we were to eliminate one speaker on each side of the stage. Or wire it so the 2 hanging ones are on one feed (vocals) and the ones on the stage just have the instruments thru them.   

And I hope no one from there reads this part. A fellow came in as we were testing things out. The short version of the story he told me he is a rigger. I then not very politely asked him about how the speakers were hung. He said that was done before he was there. And he has only been doing rigging for about 7 years. BUT he was oblivious to how badly they were hung. In other words, he never noticed that they were hung improperly. Beside the fact that there were never built to be hung. At first as I was pointing things out to him he didn’t think there was a problem and then as I brought it to his attention he started to notice the issues. But he scared me at some of the things that he said as to how he would hang them including drilling hole thru the wooden beam and put the chain thru the hole. I told the guy I was working with and the music leader that that guy didn’t know what he is talking about and I question whether or not he is really a rigger. I made the Music guy aware of how I interacted with this guy and told him he may hear a complaint about me. I am not a rigger but I do know a lot (but not everything) about what is right and wrong and have worked hand in hand with riggers.   

Almost all of their gear is subpar, the amps are ok. But the wireless mics are JUNK. This place is about 37 miles (as the crow flies) to mid-town Manhattan. I didn’t go there expecting to have to do anything with wireless mics, so I wasn’t prepared to scan the room for RF. I think there are 14 to 15 channels of wireless mics there. They have 8 mics that have the receivers in an 8 pack that they said cost them about $500 dollars total for all 8 transmitters and the 8 channel receiver. This is fixed frequencies and they are all in the 600MHz range with none of them in the usable gap. It took a lot to find what the frequencies are. I tasked the music guy to do the look up online. I think all of the other mics except maybe one or 2 are also in the 600MHz range. Almost all of the mics in the 8 pack were dropping out even when on stage, about 20 feet from the receivers. Fromm what they told me it sounds like they have been having a problem for a while with these mics. I don’t know if it is because they are junk or if T-Mobile has actually started transmitting in this area. According to http://cleanwirelessaudio.com/ the closest T-Mobile sites are 10.5miles away (Q3 2019) in one direction and about 20 miles away (deployed) in the other direction. Does anyone know how close they would have to be to interfere? I have told them of the legal issues and the said they aren’t even going to mention it to the pastor until after this Sunday. My friend said it took 2 years to get him to buy the X32 so they don’t want to shock him that now he is also going to have to replace all of these wireless mics. I suggested that they replace them with wired mics.

My friend thinks he is all set and he can do the service tomorrow on his own, which is good. They do have a pre service rehearsal. I am trying to decide whether to get there in time for that and stand by if he has any issues or just let him call me if he needs any help.

Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors.

[Jason Glass]

According to http://cleanwirelessaudio.com/ the closest T-Mobile sites are 10.5miles away (Q3 2019) in one direction and about 20 miles away (deployed) in the other direction.

Woah, hold on just a minute.

The map on my site doesn't claim location accuracy to that degree of granularity.  It shows T-Mobile's published claims of Band 71 blocks' deployments on a per-county basis.  And that is all.  The pins merely indicate the geographic center of each cited county.

T-Mobile claims that they have deployed blocks B and C in and all around Manhattan and eastern New Jersey.  RF mic users must not transmit on frequencies within any blocks that telecoms are actually operating or testing.

It's up to those mic users to know the rules, know exactly how to conform to the rules, and to conform to the rules.  The only way to know, for sure, if a block is active is to have a competent technician perform spectrum analysis at the mic operation location.  And it's messier than that...

The New York City TV market region has already completed its TV channel repack phase, and telecoms are free to deploy their Band 71 systems in that area at any time.  In any block from A to G, without warning.  Even a well performed spectrum analysis can suddenly become obsolete.

[Jordan Wolf]

In many churches (my own included) there are often people with good intentions who make uninformed decisions based on limited knowledge of a subject. For some reason, these people either have money or have a say in what gets budgeted where and equipment gets purchased that is inadequate and of subpar quality.

I’ve had talks with my church that revolve around informed decision-making and stewardship of resources. Jim Brown’s paper “Why Churches Buy Three Sound Systems, and How You Can Buy Only One”is a great read and illustrates well the pitfalls of assembling piecemeal systems as well as the benefits of hiring an acoustic consultant who understands all that goes into an installed reinforcement system.

As has been said before...”The wrong tool at the right price is still the wrong tool.”

[Erik Jerde]

This is 100% normal in small churchs.  Also not uncommon with band rigs and small bar rigs.  Just the normal result of well meaning people with little knowledge and just enough money to get in trouble.

I’ve helped my brother with his little church PA a couple of times.  I absolutely won’t touch the flown boxes because it’s such a rigging nightmare.  The rest of it is crap except for the mixer and amps I sold them a few years ago.

[Kevin Maxwell]

Woah, hold on just a minute.

The map on my site doesn't claim location accuracy to that degree of granularity.  It shows T-Mobile's published claims of Band 71 blocks' deployments on a per-county basis.  And that is all.  The pins merely indicate the geographic center of each cited county.

Thank you for that clarification. I miss read the map because I didn't see any thing that said what you just said. So does this mean the map just tell me that T-Mobile has MULTIPLE CELL sites probably all over the counties which in this case are Fairfield County, CT, USA the center of which is 10.5miles from this church and Westchester County, NY, USA the center of which is about 20 miles away?

   

[Jason Glass]

I now regret that my site doesn't include a disclaimer and assumes some level of familiarity with the TV repack and T-Mobile deployments.  As they say, "No good deed goes unpunished."

This whole thread is informative and highly recommended:
https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,164023.0.html

[Kevin Maxwell]

I now regret that my site doesn't include a disclaimer and assumes some level of familiarity with the TV repack and T-Mobile deployments.  As they say, "No good deed goes unpunished."

This whole thread is informative and highly recommended:
https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,164023.0.html

Long reply to give you an idea of where I am coming from with all of this.

I appreciate all of you contribution here and your website. I understand you reply of “As they say, "No good deed goes unpunished."”. I have said that exact same thing sometimes.  Don’t be discouraged, you are appreciated.

I read that link  https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,164023.0.html a while ago (I think I read all of it over the years it was posted to) and even looked at the end of it just the other day. I really don’t know why I interpreted your map in a way that had me thinking that it was actually showing a cell site and that there would be only one. I should have known better. I think part of it was I just assumed that I would take the stance with the people (churches and schools and other entertainment facilities) that I deal with that the law is the law and they should just stay away from the outlawed 600MHz band. So I didn’t think I would need to know too much about T-Mobiles sites. So I didn’t pay as much attention to it all except to stay away from the 600MHz band. This church shocked me with the JUNK wireless that they have. And I was trying to figure out why it is so bad. Is it because these are inferior devices and/or because T-Mobile is actually using those frequencies already in this area.

I was aware of the duplex gap and the restrictions. And have taken that in mind when dealing with RF coordination. And I am having clients getting annoyed when I tell them about the RF restrictions because of these changes. Many years ago I got involved in doing some RF coordination because of the times I got bit because the wireless we were using weren’t properly coordinated. I am not an expert but I am extremely paranoid in my coordination’s and it has helped me to not have RF problems. I am not marketing myself as an RF coordinator when I do it, it is usually because I am there to do other things and I can usually tell by just listening to the wireless and to what they tell me that some of the problems they are having are due to an uncoordinated wireless system. And I am doing coordination for events that I am doing sound for, like musicals, so I am doing it for myself. When I explained my procedures to someone on here (who will remain nameless at the moment) I don’t remember the exact quote but he basically said I was being too paranoid.

One coordination I was involved with last year was in a school where we were installing some upgrades to a meeting room where the BOE (Board of Education) had their meetings. The meetings are streamed live and recorded and this system included live sound. The sound company put in 24 wireless mics and a mixer with Automix capabilities. But that part is another story that I actually have posted on here before. I not only took into account what at the time was on the air I also included what I was aware of was going to be in different places after the repack. I only added that information for frequencies to avoid, not looking at what should be additional frequency space. This was all with Shure’s help with this information. But I also told them that after everything settled down with the repack that we may need to retune all of the mics depending on where things end up.
 
A church I was doing some work with recently (Speaker system upgrade and monitor mixer for IEMs) has a bunch of wireless in use in there meeting spaces in this building. They wanted to add 7 IME transmitters. So we needed to figure out what bands they should buy the IEM system in and could we fit it all with the repack. Again I took into account what was on the air now and where some things would be on the air after the repack. Shure told me when I talked to them about this what they knew of where things were going to be moved to in relationship to this location. But they also told me that the FCC hasn’t locked this all down yet. This was a couple of months ago. I also scanned the room using my WinRadio scanner. I rescanned after the NYC repack. This place is about 55 miles from mid-town Manhattan. My scans were exactly the same before and after the repack. I wasn’t picking up any of the NYC area TV stations in my scan in this room, but I still included them in the exclusions. I use a plugin with the WinRadio that they sent me called hit counter and my testing show that this method gives me the most accurate scans. I then manipulate the data in Excel and turn it into a CSV file to import to WWB. I even included a bunch of spare frequencies for the different devices in the plan so we hopefully wouldn’t have to retune everything to squeeze some more devices into this place. With spares they are up to about 35 wireless systems.         

On the last one I did, the first thing I did was to have the sound company (that asked for my help) send me pictures of all of the receivers displaying the frequencies of the wireless receivers this school already had and send them to me. This school is in a relatively remote area of the state. I then entered all of that into WWB to see how they are set to just work with each other, before I considered any outside broadcast interference. This is just for my own curiosity and usually tells me if any care was taken in the tuning of these systems. None of the wireless worked together with them all on. I know this is an over simplification but WWB told me this wasn’t a good coordination, probably because it wasn’t coordinated at all. I told the sound company that anything I do without an onsite scan was basically just theoretical.

Please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors.

[Mike Caldwell]

I've seen the 8 pack wireless systems in churches, yea there total crap. When you tell them the $500 they paid for that system is what about the minimum cost is to get a single channel of wireless that will work they sometimes get defensive!

As for the X32 did they buy that under the pretense that it would be a magic fix all for their sound system and operator issues?

[Kevin Maxwell]

I've seen the 8 pack wireless systems in churches, yea there total crap. When you tell that the $500 they paid for that system is what about the minimum cost to get a single channel of wireless that will work they sometimes get defensive!

As for the X32 did they buy that under the pretense that it would be a magic fix all for their sound system and operator issues?

Actually I told them that the absolute minimum wireless mics I would hesitantly recommend would be about $600 per channel and then I told them that the ones I regularly use cost over $2000 a channel. I told them they would do much better by getting a bunch of hardwired mics. The guy I was helping understood. It will be interesting when they tell the pastor that almost all of their mics are illegal.

I was surprised that they bought the X32 it might have had something to do with that they have seen shows that I have done where I am using one or two Midas M32 mixers and they have been impressed. And they were aware of the similarities. The people that were there on Friday when we put the mixer in were impressed. I don’t know how they had the old system put together and how it sounded and why putting in an X32 caused that much difference to them. My friend their soundman said everyone was thrilled with how good it sounded on Sunday morning. I wasn’t thrilled on Friday because I could hear what wasn’t right with their speaker system. But I guess it was a drastic improvement to them. My friend is an electrician and he understands the technology and he is very teachable.

[Mike Caldwell]

Actually I told them that the absolute minimum wireless mics I would hesitantly recommend would be about $600 per channel and then I told them that the ones I regularly use cost over $2000 a channel. I told them they would do much better by getting a bunch of hardwired mics. The guy I was helping understood. It will be interesting when they tell the pastor that almost all of their mics are illegal.

I was surprised that they bought the X32 it might have had something to do with that they have seen shows that I have done where I am using one or two Midas M32 mixers and they have been impressed. And they were aware of the similarities. The people that were there on Friday when we put the mixer in were impressed. I don’t know how they had the old system put together and how it sounded and why putting in an X32 caused that much difference to them. My friend their soundman said everyone was thrilled with how good it sounded on Sunday morning. I wasn’t thrilled on Friday because I could hear what wasn’t right with their speaker system. But I guess it was a drastic improvement to them. My friend is an electrician and he understands the technology and he is very teachable.

What was the old mixer, too bad you did not get a chance to hear
the system before it was removed.

[ProSoundWeb Community]