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[Russell Ault]

Yeah, like getting full RSSI bars on a RAD pack from the BACK of the helical shown in this picture. It's the little dot at the end of the arrow.

If my understanding of antenna theory is correct, that's not necessarily a huge surprise; some highly-directional antennas have a significant node coming straight out the back (just like a hypercardiod microphone).

Also, I hope your stay in that hotel happened after they cleaned all the bird poop out of their ventilation system (there's a reason it's not a Hilton anymore!).

-Russ

[Riley Casey]

Our standard procedure for years on most stages has been to use a paddle on the side of the stage and a passive half wave antenna in the middle of the stage close as possible to the transmitters. The primary reason for dual antennas on diversity receivers is to have each antenna in a different RF environment so if any one location fails the other location will still have enough signal to keep the show going.

...
I've since purchased 2qty 25'ft BNC cables to separate the paddles at least 10-15'ft away from the wifi router, I also have purchased 1/2 wave antennas to replace the 1/4 wave antennas on the PSM300 IEM units. I'm hoping all of this will resolve the drop out issues I was having on my mics. All of the mics are within the proper frequency ranges of 470-494mhz and 518-542mhz ranges, NONE of them operate on the 600mhz range.

[Russell Ault]

Our standard procedure for years on most stages has been to use a paddle on the side of the stage and a passive half wave antenna in the middle of the stage close as possible to the transmitters. The primary reason for dual antennas on diversity receivers is to have each antenna in a different RF environment so if any one location fails the other location will still have enough signal to keep the show going.

As I've mentioned on other threads, as far as I'm concerned the advantages of physically separating RX antennas start to break down when using RXs that rely on predictive diversity (ULX-D, QLX-D, SLX-D, EW-D, probably others in the near future now that Shure's patent has expired) since it increases the chances of the "intelligence" switching to an antenna with worse signal quality.

-Russ

[Sam Costa]

Keep a whip antenna handy. At the distances shown in your pics, an LPDA (paddle) antenna may be overkill. A helical would absolutely be overkill and potentially cause more problems than it solves.
An omni antenna, like a Sennheiser 1031-U or the Shure UA-860 might be a better choice if you are intent on remoting the antenna.
My advice would be to get the combiner first and try it with the 1/2 wave antenna, right on the combiner. If it works, you're good.
If it's better, but not perfect, then try a remote antenna.

Is there a particular Brand/model that works better than others on the 1/2 wave antennas?

[Ike Zimbel]

Is there a particular Brand/model that works better than others on the 1/2 wave antennas?

No.

[Sam Costa]

No.

Ok, thanks.

[Sam Costa]

Just a quick update, since moving the paddles AWAY from the wifi router and wireless rack (roughly 10-15 away) I've had ZERO issues with loosing RF signal to the SLX wireless mics. Night and day difference! Thank you Jason and everyone else who assisted.

Now I haven't had a chance to add my PA411 yet to the rack (need to move a few things around to make that happen) but hoping for the same results.
I did have one instance yesterday where the bass player said he lost signal briefly on one of my IEM's that happened just a few times (he was about 25ft from the 1/2 wave antennas/receiver, so we'll see what happens when I add the PA411 which I'm hoping to have racked by next weeks event.

Thank you all!

[Sam Costa]

Ok so I lied. I ended up installing the PA411 this evening and moved some items around the rack. Obviously not finished as I have single rack hardware coming as well as a vented 1U blank rack to finish it off.
Hopefully this will complete my upgrade and everything plays nicely.

Thanks for your help guys.

[Steve-White]

RF receivers have circuitry called AGC, Automatic Gain Control - having any FR source on any frequency band can have adverse effects on AGC circuitry.

What can happen is the strong source can "dump" the AGC causing it to reduce gain of the "wanted" signal by mistake.

That is why it's best to keep routers and any other type of RF emitting equipment away from sensitive receivers.  Systems don't always play well together when in close proximity to one another.  That type of interference may or may not show up on gain meters.

[Henry Cohen]

Ok so I lied. I ended up installing the PA411 this evening and moved some items around the rack. Obviously not finished as I have single rack hardware coming as well as a vented 1U blank rack to finish it off.
Hopefully this will complete my upgrade and everything plays nicely.

A few items:
1) Reposition the RX multi-coupler just above the receivers. Get it away from the transmit antenna.
2) Above the multi-coupler should be the empty space (with vent or solid panel if desired), then the transmitters above that.
3) Put transmit combiner at the very top. This acomplishes two things:
   a) Gets the radiating element part of the antenna above the aluminum extrusion of the rack case, and
   b) Gets the antenna away from the other rack electronics.

[ProSoundWeb Community]