Wireless Microphone FAQ

[mbenonis]

I definitely agree that this is a very gray area in the industry. However, I still believe that it would be extremely poor engineering practice, as well as simply irresponsible, to knowingly operate a wireless mic (or IFB) system after the cutoff above 698 MHz, legal or not.

Would you mind posting a link to the other forum you mentioned?

[museav]

That particular comment came from Henry Cohen (http://livedesignonline.com/broadway...aster_classes/) in the ProSoundWeb (PSW) Church Sound forum in a thread that started when someone posted that their music store salesman told them that their local TV station would be "taking the VHF frequencies", apparently all of them since he expected problems with any VHF mics, when it went digital. Hey, it was the music store guy. ;-)

Henry posts a lot on PSW and a number of other theatre and audio/RF related forums and is very well informed on RF related issues. You two would probably have some interesting conversations as you both seem to know a lot of the details on this.

[mbenonis]

Ah yes, Henry. While I don't know him personally, we have conversed a few times on the theatre sound list-serv. I'll be attending his presentation at the Broadway Master Sound Class this May, and I hope to talk to him in detail about these issues after the presentation.

[BBabb131]

Good Friday morning.
I'm confused as to the info available about whitespace frequencies, wirelessmics and HDTV broadcast. I have spoken to several mic company reps and cannot easily make headsor tales out of what they are saying.
Any input is appreciated.

[mbenonis]

Please read over the FAQ, and then ask any and all questions that you still have (even if it seems dumb - I'm sure lots of other people are thinking the same question!). I will admit this is a very confusing topic, and I'd like to make the FAQ as clear as possible.

[mbenonis]

I just updated the FAQ with revisions courtesy of Henry Cohen.

[mbenonis]

I've updated the FAQ with regard to 900 MHz mics (DON'T BUY THEM!) and new information regarding the 700 MHz spectrum. Please take a look!

[museav]

Mike,

I believe the 700MHz ban is currently proposed by the FCC and open for comment, but is not yet enacted. It almost certainly will be, however as of right now there is no actual prohibition, only a proposal for it. Yes it is a detail, but there are already too many common misunderstandings of what is conjecture or proposed versus what is law so it seems important to be correct on the distnction.

[mbenonis]

Brad,
You are of course correct. That said, I think it is important to emphasize that while it is currently legal to use 700 MHz devices (only with a license, of course, and we don't qualify anyway), it is very likely that it will not after February 17, 2009.

[waynehoskins]

I've said elsewhere that "the FCC is going to-- well, really 'has proposed to', which means that they will--". The way I read it and understand the FCC to work, what they set forth in an NPRM is what they carry out in an R&O unless they're presented with sufficient reason to not do that; and there's no way they'll be persuaded to let existing 700-meg transmitters keep running.

In other interesting news, I found out who PISC are. Their board is made of CEOs of people like Google, AT&T, and so on, the New Owners of 700-megs. "Public Interest", my ass.

All that says to me that Google, AT&T, GTE, Microsoft, and whoever-the-hell-else owns 700 megs now have the FCC by the short hairs, and so we'll be lucky if we get anything out of the deal. Yippee-hurrah.