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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 => SR Forum Archives => LAB Lounge FUD Forum Archive => Topic started by: Jack Gunn on February 03, 2011, 08:46:18 PM

Title: AT ATW-A49 Paddles on Shure UA844SWB?
Post by: Jack Gunn on February 03, 2011, 08:46:18 PM
The Shure Active UA870USTV paddle antenna is one of the recommended for use with the Shure UA844SWB antenna distro but I'm considering some Audio Technica ATW-A49 passive paddles.

They are the same ohm/freq range/base gain but much cheaper.  Since I'm not using long cable runs (3' and 6') do I really need the active paddles which are mainly used for compensating for long cable runs' line loss?

I'm assuming I won't burn anything out in the Shure distro since it shows it being used with passive 1/2 wave stick antennas.
Title: Re: AT ATW-A49 Paddles on Shure UA844SWB?
Post by: ThomasDameron on February 08, 2011, 06:49:06 PM
I've been using and specing A49's for a little while and they've been great.  

I don't like having the active circuit in the Shure paddles and have run into a few situations where problems were rectified by switching from those to passives in areas with high RF traffic.  Remember you're using them as receive antennas, so you don't necessarily want more gain on the listening device because it can either "hear" more sources from further away, or it can overload the RF front end of your receivers and cause IM harmonics.  As a Bexel tech said on one job, "in RF less is always better".

thomas d.
Title: Re: AT ATW-A49 Paddles on Shure UA844SWB?
Post by: Scott Helmke (Scodiddly) on February 14, 2011, 03:05:09 PM
The active stuff on the Shure paddles is just there to help with long antenna cables - don't use the +10 option unless you're hitting a lot of wire!

We use the Sennheiser A2003 paddles fairly often with Shure stuff.  As long as the frequency range you need is covered, pretty much any antenna will work with any splitter.