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Author Topic: Rf Issues last weekend  (Read 3302 times)

Nick Andrews

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Rf Issues last weekend
« on: September 01, 2021, 03:08:52 PM »

Hi everyone!

Last weekend I experienced some bad rf problems with my sennheiser ew300 g3 iem system in the A freq band. 3 to 4 channels running focus mode / split mono mixes.

I run ulxd4q (8 channels) in the v50 band as well

I use the stock whip antennas on the ulxd system. They are networked together and I always scan before the event and have never run into any issues with them.

I use the a2003uhf paddle with the ew300 rig with the sennheiser antenna combiner.

I could not for the life of me find open channels on the ew300 this weekend. I scanned via the easy setup method on the packs as always but struggled 2 days in a row in 2 different locations approx 1 hour apart here in Westchester ny. In the end the only slightly not awful range was around 517 to 519 mhz....

Should I be looking to get out of the A band ?

Just hard drop outs and rf bursts no matter how I had the antenna , squelch and so on....

Tried multiple spare packs and transmitter units as well.

Any advice or insight is always appreciated!

Thank you

Nick -



« Last Edit: September 01, 2021, 03:16:14 PM by Nick Andrews »
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brian maddox

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2021, 03:18:27 PM »

Hi everyone!

Last weekend I experienced some bad rf problems with my sennheiser ew300 g3 iem system in the A freq band. 3 to 4 channels running focus mode / split mono mixes.

I run ulxd4q (8 channels) in the v50 band as well

I use the stock whip antennas on the ulxd system. They are networked together and I always scan before the event and have never run into any issues with them.

I use the a2003uhf paddle with the ew300 rig with the sennheiser antenna combiner.

I could not for the life of me find open channels on the ew300 this weekend. I scanned via the easy setup method on the packs as always but struggled 2 days in a row in 2 different locations approx 1 hour apart here in Westchester ny. In the end the only slightly not awful range was around 517 to 519 mhz....

Should I be looking to get out of the A band ?

Just hard drop outs and rf bursts no matter how I had the antenna , squelch and so on....

Tried multiple spare packs and transmitter units as well.

Any advice or insight is always appreciated!

Thank you

Nick -

Do you use Wireless Workbench or similar software to coordinate your RF frequencies? You really should be. It's free software and at 12 channels of RF you're well past the threshold where you need to be doing Frequency coordination on every gig.
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Jonathan Hole

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2021, 04:45:50 PM »

Hi everyone!

Last weekend I experienced some bad rf problems with my sennheiser ew300 g3 iem system in the A freq band. 3 to 4 channels running focus mode / split mono mixes.

I run ulxd4q (8 channels) in the v50 band as well

I use the stock whip antennas on the ulxd system. They are networked together and I always scan before the event and have never run into any issues with them.

I use the a2003uhf paddle with the ew300 rig with the sennheiser antenna combiner.

I could not for the life of me find open channels on the ew300 this weekend. I scanned via the easy setup method on the packs as always but struggled 2 days in a row in 2 different locations approx 1 hour apart here in Westchester ny. In the end the only slightly not awful range was around 517 to 519 mhz....

Should I be looking to get out of the A band ?

Just hard drop outs and rf bursts no matter how I had the antenna , squelch and so on....

Tried multiple spare packs and transmitter units as well.

Any advice or insight is always appreciated!

Thank you

Nick -

I have the opposite - Shure IEM and Sent wireless, but for much of this season I was having similar issues with my Shure IEM (also 4 packs) and my Senn range doesn't overlap hardly at all, so those are well apart.  We are a multi-state touring band and many of our outdoor Ampitheater locations happen to be near police stations and other towers and in one location I literally could not scan up a clear channel either.  Given that I absolutely love the RF Venue splitter + Diversity Fin antenna (never a drop out), I decided to buckle up and buy the RF Venue Beam antenna, not really knowing if it would solve this or not.  While I won't revisit some locations until next year, our band has had zero dropouts in ears since that upgrade, including this past weekend at a very large Ampitheater and them roaming all over the audience.  So while you may be having other issues as well, I wanted to say that RF Venue has never let me down and they also have some great videos on their website too just to help you think thru the common issues.  BTW:  As the previous reply said, you have Shure wireless so every easy to take advantage of Shure Wireless Workbench and have a visual scan of each location and use that tool to coordinate both systems - can load the Senn in as well though will have to manually adjust.  Not sure if this helped but giving you my experience as for some reason this year was tougher on my IEM system than previous. (FYI: Our IEM are Shure G20 range)
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Ike Zimbel

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2021, 06:48:10 PM »

I have the opposite - Shure IEM and Sent wireless, but for much of this season I was having similar issues with my Shure IEM (also 4 packs) and my Senn range doesn't overlap hardly at all, so those are well apart.  We are a multi-state touring band and many of our outdoor Ampitheater locations happen to be near police stations and other towers and in one location I literally could not scan up a clear channel either.  Given that I absolutely love the RF Venue splitter + Diversity Fin antenna (never a drop out), I decided to buckle up and buy the RF Venue Beam antenna, not really knowing if it would solve this or not.  While I won't revisit some locations until next year, our band has had zero dropouts in ears since that upgrade, including this past weekend at a very large Ampitheater and them roaming all over the audience.  So while you may be having other issues as well, I wanted to say that RF Venue has never let me down and they also have some great videos on their website too just to help you think thru the common issues.  BTW:  As the previous reply said, you have Shure wireless so every easy to take advantage of Shure Wireless Workbench and have a visual scan of each location and use that tool to coordinate both systems - can load the Senn in as well though will have to manually adjust.  Not sure if this helped but giving you my experience as for some reason this year was tougher on my IEM system than previous. (FYI: Our IEM are Shure G20 range)
The more likely explanation is that the UHF TV channels that yours and the OP's ears operate in may now all be occupied. For example, your PSM-300 G20 packs would have a hard time here in Toronto because the four DTV channels that G20 covers (DTV 17-20, 486-512 MHz) are all occupied. If the packs, scanning with their own antenna can't find an open channel, the TX antenna is not going to have an awful lot of impact on that. The 600 MHz Re-pack has been covered extensively here, but if you haven't been following, a whole bunch of DTV channels that were above channel 37 have been relocated below Channel 37 and in some markets, that has left very little open UHF bandwidth.
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Nick Andrews

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2021, 12:17:16 PM »

The more likely explanation is that the UHF TV channels that yours and the OP's ears operate in may now all be occupied. For example, your PSM-300 G20 packs would have a hard time here in Toronto because the four DTV channels that G20 covers (DTV 17-20, 486-512 MHz) are all occupied. If the packs, scanning with their own antenna can't find an open channel, the TX antenna is not going to have an awful lot of impact on that. The 600 MHz Re-pack has been covered extensively here, but if you haven't been following, a whole bunch of DTV channels that were above channel 37 have been relocated below Channel 37 and in some markets, that has left very little open UHF bandwidth.

Thank you to everyone who replied.

So I did set up wireless work bench , and sennheiser wireless system manager.

My ulxd4q systems are in v50 band so the issue I'm having in work bench is I cannot scan within the sennheiser a freq range, is there any way around this ?

I'm still learning the sennheiser software but thus far have not been able to get anywhere with it showing me any problem channels or interference....am I missing something here ?

Thanks again !

Nick
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brian maddox

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2021, 03:24:56 PM »

Thank you to everyone who replied.

So I did set up wireless work bench , and sennheiser wireless system manager.

My ulxd4q systems are in v50 band so the issue I'm having in work bench is I cannot scan within the sennheiser a freq range, is there any way around this ?

I'm still learning the sennheiser software but thus far have not been able to get anywhere with it showing me any problem channels or interference....am I missing something here ?

Thanks again !

Nick

Using WWB to scan is a great tool, but it's really not its primary function. Knowing what RF is already in your area is useful knowledge, but The primary function is to coordinate ALL your frequencies together with whatever RF is already known to be used in your area.

In order to do that, you really need to have ALL the RF devices input into the SAME software. WWB does have presets for Sennheiser products including the IEMs that you have so you can put those into your inventory in WWB along with your ULXD. You can also input your physical location so that WWB can factor in known RF transmitters [Mostly TV transmitters] into the coordination. Once you've done that and run the Frequency Coordination, WWB will tell you what frequencies to tune all your gear to in order to prevent intermodulation and make things work together.

It does take a bit to get your head around how to input all of this into WWB and get a frequency coordination. But I'm sure with a little Google-foo you can find plenty of instructional material to get it all figured out. And once you know how to do it it's very straightforward to do again in another location with a different set of RF gear and that's where it really starts to pay off.
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Mac Kerr

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2021, 09:12:11 PM »

Wireless Work Bench is a powerful tool, especially for free.  See below.

https://practicalshowtechcom.squarespace.com/show-archive/wwb-rf-coordination-process-for-made-up-mega-convention-show-pst-078?

More of an overview and introduction to coordination:

https://practicalshowtechcom.squarespace.com/show-archive/shure-wireless-workbench-system-control-rf-coord-pst-014?

When I read Brian's post above I thought of referencing those 2 videos, but you beat me to it.

Mac
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Ike Zimbel

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2021, 03:40:23 PM »

When I read Brian's post above I thought of referencing those 2 videos, but you beat me to it.

Mac
This is all good info, but the OP's challenge is that his mics (receivers), which can be used for a scan via WWB are in the VHF range, and his IEM's are in UHF. So, the location database in WWB might be helpful for the ears, if it's up-to-date but I doubt that he is having coordination issues between his mics and ears. It still sounds to me like there just isn't any open spectrum for his in-ears.
One trick that I used to use (though I haven't needed to for years): If you are having trouble coordinating frequencies that the ears are happy with, use one of the IEM packs to do a scan, go to the group that it finds the most frequencies in, and then try back-entering those into the coordination. Typically I would be able to find a frequency or two that fit the coordination and worked with the pack.
Another thing that occurs to me regarding the Sennheiser IEM's: Check the Squelch settings. For whatever reasons, Sennheiser has always had their systems default to the lowest squelch setting, which IIRC is "5". If your packs are all set to "5" try setting them towards the middle of their range, around "11". If that helps, you may go up a bit from there to "13" or "15". If the packs are on the lowest squelch setting, they are going to get slammed by the RF noise floor in your area and they won't find any usable frequencies when you scan. I'd sure like to do a show where those really low squelch settings could actually be used...Burning Man, maybe? :-\
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Nick Andrews

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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #9 on: September 20, 2021, 10:31:43 AM »

This is all good info, but the OP's challenge is that his mics (receivers), which can be used for a scan via WWB are in the VHF range, and his IEM's are in UHF. So, the location database in WWB might be helpful for the ears, if it's up-to-date but I doubt that he is having coordination issues between his mics and ears. It still sounds to me like there just isn't any open spectrum for his in-ears.
One trick that I used to use (though I haven't needed to for years): If you are having trouble coordinating frequencies that the ears are happy with, use one of the IEM packs to do a scan, go to the group that it finds the most frequencies in, and then try back-entering those into the coordination. Typically I would be able to find a frequency or two that fit the coordination and worked with the pack.
Another thing that occurs to me regarding the Sennheiser IEM's: Check the Squelch settings. For whatever reasons, Sennheiser has always had their systems default to the lowest squelch setting, which IIRC is "5". If your packs are all set to "5" try setting them towards the middle of their range, around "11". If that helps, you may go up a bit from there to "13" or "15". If the packs are on the lowest squelch setting, they are going to get slammed by the RF noise floor in your area and they won't find any usable frequencies when you scan. I'd sure like to do a show where those really low squelch settings could actually be used...Burning Man, maybe? :-\

I am basically at the point where I guess I'm going to get out of the freq band i'm in and make an upgrade to something else. Last night I had to literally manually go through freq by freq to find something useable and walk where the performers are with the mics and iem packs, and even when i found a channel that wasnt dropping or getting RF hits I had some static that could not be avoided. Pretty frustrating. Especially since I have used this setup like this for about 4 years without issues until now.

I have not had much luck with workbench or sennheiser WSM for several reasons discussed above

That being said, what would everyone suggest moving to in the NY tri state area as far as freq band in sennheiser or shure IEM systems. 4 to 6 channels max. Looking at making a move into something that I will not have to change for a while.( hopefully  , funny right =) )

I have 8 channels of ULXD wireless in V50 band that i run as well.

Many thanks as always for the insight and advice!

Nick
« Last Edit: September 20, 2021, 10:37:05 AM by Nick Andrews »
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Re: Rf Issues last weekend
« Reply #9 on: September 20, 2021, 10:31:43 AM »


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