Wireless - Ideal Wireless Mic Software

[mbenonis]

If there were a software package to help you with wireless microphones, what features would it have? Here are some general areas to consider, but I'm hoping for more specific feedback.

- Where would it be useful to access it? I.e., would iPhone/Android be good?
- Is web based okay? Is it better? Are there situations when you can't get internet?
- Other than generating frequencies and checking a set of frequencies for conflicts, what should it do?

[waynehoskins]

I like the smartphone-capable idea.

My basic thought is a merging of the functionality of both the FCC lookup web-apps and SIFM, with the ability to use the phone's GPS to determine location for a quick field coordination.

It would be great if it could save locations, coordinations, and perhaps more. It would be great if it knew the bandsplits on multiple manufacturers' radios.

How great would it be to be able to tell it "I have three Evo G1-A, five Evo G3-G, two SR400, and Stored Rack 4 of EM1031 (with these preset crystals). Coordinate these all where I am now."

[avkid]

Wayne pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I would love to have something like this on an iPad.

[Chris15]

It needs to take the power of the TV station and the distance and work out the rough signal strength (A TX might only be 10 km away, but if it's 100W it won't be a big deal)

It needs to be able to skip over flub dub and take a saved coordination and be able to add to it (someone else shows up with an extra something on show day).

Ability to define and then sysnthesise within zones would be great. ie. You direct hit protect between zones but disregard intermods.

Web based? Um refer to that other thread about RF dead zones in concrete buildings - they tend to hamper access to the web much like they stop you being interrupted by a phone call

Phones etc - Do they have the processing power to do a *real* synthesis in a timely manner? Even a 25 frequency set starts to really add up the number of calculations for intermods...

It needs to be not restricted to the Wireless audio band ideally, so you can coordinate the RF for the Motorolas as an integral part of the Spectrum Management.

Ability to define a priority would be a good thing in my book. Ie. when you can't find enough frequencies to make my whole system work, these are the ones to start knocking out first...

Location definition by GPS would be really nice
Ability to remember Locations to create a list fo "favourites"
- this should have an option to add notes
- Really like an option to define "no go" zones of spectrum for a venue - ie. this area is full of noise at this venue
- Should be able to store frequencies attached to a venue - ie. House RF (thinking particularly for the Comms aspect)

More thoughts as they come to mind...

[museav]

Web based? Um refer to that other thread about RF dead zones in concrete buildings - they tend to hamper access to the web much like they stop you being interrupted by a phone call.

So it's sort of a self check, if you can't get wireless cell or WiFi access then chances are there is likely significant shielding at the UHF frequencies as well. That could be a neat feature, unless you have a cell repeater or WAP in the space, use the phone to measure the signal levels inside and outside the space and correlate that difference to an associated expected loss at the related frequencies.

[mbenonis]

It needs to take the power of the TV station and the distance and work out the rough signal strength (A TX might only be 10 km away, but if it's 100W it won't be a big deal)

What if the software had a database of Longley-Rice predictions for TV stations, and used this data to make a good/maybe/bad determination for a location?

It needs to be able to skip over flub dub and take a saved coordination and be able to add to it (someone else shows up with an extra something on show day).

Ability to define and then sysnthesise within zones would be great. ie. You direct hit protect between zones but disregard intermods.

Can you elaborate on that point? Not sure I follow about zones.

Web based? Um refer to that other thread about RF dead zones in concrete buildings - they tend to hamper access to the web much like they stop you being interrupted by a phone call

An app would be a possibility, but I think a web version would launch first.

Phones etc - Do they have the processing power to do a *real* synthesis in a timely manner? Even a 25 frequency set starts to really add up the number of calculations for intermods...

This is something I'm not sure of. I can say that it takes a web server a good thirty seconds to do a fair number of calculations...

It needs to be not restricted to the Wireless audio band ideally, so you can coordinate the RF for the Motorolas as an integral part of the Spectrum Management.

I don't see a reason it should have any artificial limitations.

Ability to define a priority would be a good thing in my book. Ie. when you can't find enough frequencies to make my whole system work, these are the ones to start knocking out first...

Location definition by GPS would be really nice
Ability to remember Locations to create a list of "favourites"
- this should have an option to add notes
- Really like an option to define "no go" zones of spectrum for a venue - ie. this area is full of noise at this venue
- Should be able to store frequencies attached to a venue - ie. House RF (thinking particularly for the Comms aspect)

More thoughts as they come to mind...

Okay, cool. Thanks for the feedback!