Wireless Sennheiser G2 300 Series with Net1 - Channel Scanning

[cooks44]

Hey All,

Hoping someone here has had a bit more experience with the Sennheiser Net1 system to help me with an answer as searching the internet/going through Sennheiser's documentation hasn't given me an answer yet...

We have a number of G2 300 Series wireless systems, which we're looking to rack together with 16 or so receivers, 2 Net1s, antenna splitters, etc, etc.

The Net1 will do channel scanning for you, based on the channels stored in the banks of the receiver it uses to scan with. As the 300 series only has 8 channels per bank, the Net1 could only program 8 channels/receivers. The 500 series however can do 20 channels/bank.

If we include 1 x 500 series receiver in with 15 x 300 series, will it then program all the radios correctly? Or does the Net1 only send bank/channel combinations to each receiver when reprogramming, so the 300 series will be unable to look up the bank/channel table as given by the Net1???

Thanks for any info you can provide!

 

[bishopthomas]

That's an interesting question. I wish I had the answer for you, but I haven't had any experience with the Net1 unit. I would suggest calling Sennheiser and get your answers directly from the source. I just realized that you are in Melbourne. The Australian distributor is Syntec (+61 2 9910 6700).

 

[Chris15]

cooks44 Syntec service are notoriously hard to get on to. Too much work, not enough staff...
What's the application? Any reason you would not just set the frequencies and forget them?

 

[cooks44]

Thanks for the replies, we get our Sennheiser equipment direct from Syntec - needless to say I'm looking for answers elsewhere.

I work for a hire company and our stock goes throughout Australia, whether on our own gigs or as dry hires. Currently we manually pre-tune our radios before they leave the warehouse, or where concern when nearby equipment is present we run a separate frequency scan onsite before choosing channels to tune to.

I suppose this has more come from thinking and discussions about the equipment's capabilities - not from using it onsite... We'll still have to coordinate with other RF users there to see what's being used, as most likely they wouldn't be on when bumping in. Plus I have no idea how the Senn. units react when it's interference from other RF equipment (wireless comms are frequently found on our band, let alone uplinks from various TV stations, etc when near the city...)

Might be best to stick to laptop tuning with the Net1 anyway...

Still nice to know what the equipment is capable of!

 

[Chris15]

I suppose this has more come from thinking and discussions about the equipment's capabilities - not from using it onsite... We'll still have to coordinate with other RF users there to see what's being used, as most likely they wouldn't be on when bumping in. Plus I have no idea how the Senn. units react when it's interference from other RF equipment (wireless comms are frequently found on our band, let alone uplinks from various TV station

Wireless comms should be included in your frequency coordination if it's things like BTR800s. You need all the beltpacks on if you are going to have the Net1 do a scan, otherwise you run the risk of only detecting the base station freqs not the beltpack freqs. I am not aware of any TV uplink running in the UHF broadcast band in Aus.

The roups are a dumbed down option for users of the system in my opinion. A full coordination will use the whole tuning range rather than just the preprogrammed groups... Like Master list mode on SLX and ULX Shure systems...

Out of curiosity, what bandsplit are these units in?

 

[cooks44]

You need all the beltpacks on if you are going to have the Net1 do a scan, otherwise you run the risk of only detecting the base station freqs not the beltpack freqs. I am not aware of any TV uplink running in the UHF broadcast band in Aus.

The roups are a dumbed down option for users of the system in my opinion. A full coordination will use the whole tuning range rather than just the preprogrammed groups... Like Master list mode on SLX and ULX Shure systems...

Out of curiosity, what bandsplit are these units in?

Exactly right. Good to know that they will pick up the beltpacks during a scan. I've never personally used the scan option so wasn't sure - we do a full coordination to pick up what is on, and a manual "what wireless equipment do you have - show me so I can ascertain the frequencies" check on most venues. Re. the TV uplinks, I was at a Jands seminar with Tim Veer from Shure discussing their new gear and the spectrum changes that are going on... Whilst scanning the bands using his equipment, we found a handful of blocks in the band that were certainly busy... One of the guys attending the seminar was from Ch. 7 (from memory - one of the stations anyway!) and identified them as their uplinks... Apparently around Etihad Stadium they have eight or so different frequencies they use since digital came about... Around Victoria, apparently there's many, many difference frequencies they use to send to all the digital repeater stations - never thought of that before.

We've got radios in both B and D frequencies, so 626-668MHz and 786-822MHz. Of course all our newer G3 radios are B frequency only...

 

[Chris15]

Well I'm only guessing how Sennheiser do their scanning, but I presume it's looking for signal strengths above a given threshold...
Realise that D band will need to be replaced when the digital dividend comes through....
I'm still not convinced on the TV uplinks...
What it might be is the infill translators, The main Melbourne transmitters are on Mt Dandenong, but there are translators at: Selby, Upwey, Ferntree Gully, South Yarra / Como, Rosebud South, Arthurs Seat, Warburton and Marysville, each if which will have 5 analogue channels in use, there is however a fair degree of reuse there, and there are 2 SFN setups for digital so that would be 10 channels...
Most links are done on fibre and / or microwave links in the 7GHz and higher frequency ranges. Each network also has 2 frequencies in the 2.5 GHz range that are used principally for wireless cameras (with liberal borrowing from one another as and when needed).