Sabine Wireless

blademaster

Active Member
Ok so I just got a amazing job working down at a playhouse called Gaslight Theatre here in tucson, and for our ten actors we use sabine wireless mic with various mic elements all basicly lapel type. the concept works well except that we get really cruddy reception on them. I mean we get like twice the reception on our old shure wireless lapels that my church uses. now the sabine's are frequency agile and use a twin rack mount reciever, tomorrow when i go in i can grab model #'s. But the thing i am wondering is why in the world i get such crappy reception. oh btw the receivers are back on stage on stage left.
 
The Sabine units transmit in the 2.4 GHz Amateur/ISM band, and not the UHF TV band. Because of this, they pick up all kinds of interference from WiFi networks, cordless phones, bluetooth devices, Amateur TV stations (ok, not very likely, but still...), and 50 million other things. Additionally, since they are spread-spectrum and frequency-hopping, the usual advice of using frequency coordination software to coordinate all of the units and good RF filters on the input of the receivers no longer applies.

I would say your best bet is to try to control the RF environment around you. Get people to turn off any WiFi cards or Bluetooth devices and hope that this fixes the issue. See if Sabine offers any kind of directional antennas, and use them. You might even try a Pringles Cantenna designed for wireless internet - it might just do the trick.
 
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the sad part is we start experiencing dropouts after about 30'.
this isnt in a residential neighborhood, and i dont think their are any wifi networks out their. so basically it doesnt make much sense, combined with the fact that for the range of a max of like 50' we get crappy reception. plus the reception randomly gets static and whatnot...
 
Call Sabine, and complain and escalate the problem, they promised the moon with this system and I understand your experience is not unusual.
Sharyn
 
what all transmits on the 2.4ghz frequency range? at work i am having major issues with almost seeming random frequency encountering a lot of interference. i want to find out where those sources of interference are and stop them if i can....help me please.
 
Cordless phones
Microwave ovens
Wireless internet
Wireless security cameras
and a whole lot more...
 
what all transmits on the 2.4ghz frequency range? at work i am having major issues with almost seeming random frequency encountering a lot of interference. i want to find out where those sources of interference are and stop them if i can....help me please.

Please re-read my initial reply above - I listed everything I can think of. And offered some suggestions. :)
 
mbenonis, sorry i forgot about that.it is a bit aggravating when the show is distracted majorly by interference
 
mbenonis, sorry i forgot about that.it is a bit aggravating when the show is distracted majorly by interference

No problem. I know how you feel. If my original suggestions don't pan out (short of making a Cantenna - that can take a while), call Sabine and ask for suggestions. After all, they DID say that their product would work - they should back that up.
 
Wow what sort of chance is this?? Randomly found this site and find my coworker on here asking about our problem!

I also got a job at the same theater with this guy and I'll add my 2 cents on the problem.

At the moment most of the mic channels are between 60-70 while one is on 50 and another in on 52. I was trying to see if we could get away from problem channels. This didn't work and produced only very slight improvements. What happens as the actor hits the box far left of the stage, farthest place from the receivers, he will remain in reception as he talks, as the scene changes and he stops talking the signal is lost. In addition there is a clicking noise usually only as he talks, I first thought this was the mic element but upon changing that I eliminated that as the issue. I'm now thinking its the wireless pack. Also we get static every so often and that I'm pretty sure in interference as you've been discussing.

Most of the problems are happening to only two of the mics constantly, unfortunately one is the main actors. So it may just be those particular units. Of course the owner is pretty much unwilling to spend money so if we need to replace units I'm sure that will bring up other issues. Anyway I look forward to responses and hope to see some ideas pop up.
 
You need an amplifier/antenna distribution unit and two directional antennas.
This won't be cheap.

Especially at 2.4 GHz, since Sabine is the ONLY manufacturer to venture into this territory. As I said, the main problem isn't so much the distance between receivers (a good receiver should be able to work over 1000 feet from the transmitter, assuming a low noise floor and no direct interference), but rather the other devices competing for spectrum space and raising the noise floor. Unfortunately, in today's world it's virtually impossible to lower the noise floor. The only thing you can do is shut down all 2.4 GHz devices you can control, and get the receivers as close to the mics as possible to increase the signal-to-noise ratio.*

It is worth noting that because this system operates at 2.4 GHz, the usual trick of moving antennas closer to the transmitters by using long(er) runs of coax cable is now a losing proposition. According to Sabine's own manual, loss is 16dB at 10 meters for RG58 - that's huge. To get losses to a manageable level (2.5 dB/10m), you'd need to use Belden 9913 or equivalent RG8/U cable, which will be very costly. I wouldn't recommend it.

*I realize this sounds contradictory, since I just said that distance isn't the problem. And it isn't. The main issue with this system is simply that the noise floor is quite high in the 2.4 GHz band. Therefore, the receivers need to be closer to the transmitters in order to hear them.
 
we actually somewhat recently upgraded to these. they wont do that again. before i worked here i hadnt even heard of sabine. basically what i suggest is prolly our best bet. dang i hate my luck
 

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