I'm looking for an economical wireless system and I've been searching about to see what's there.

There are VHF and UHF systems out there and it appears as though the UHF systems are newer or becoming more popular (not sure why... stability, regulations...?)

Each of these is then separated into 2 types, Regular Single Transmission and True Diversity or Dual Signal systems. These transmit a pair of signals that are matched at the receiver to help eliminate transmission losses. I also found 4 channel UHF systems.

I was thinking I could get away with a VHF unit that provides twin signals (the Diversity models) and given I'm not venturing great distances or through heavy traffic.

The last thread was over a year back and from what I could find it's hit the subject list that once.

? Any opinions here?
For all I know this has been totally replaced by some Bluetooth technology already...
New to me anyway.... let me know what you've got or recommend.
pk

I have a Nady True Diversity from twenty years ago. It was good even it if compressed the signal.

One thing I do know is you should buy a new one. I believe the frequencies have been changed by the FCC and you don't want to get stuck with an old model. Mine is in storage and I have no idea where it is...so I' won't know about mine for a while.

Google FCC white space

Idon't know that the whole 'white space' issue has been sorted out yet. Last I looked, nobodys solution as working properly.

I would not buy a wireless -anything- right now.

I know anything about the whole wireless / wired issue.

A friend of mine is a pretty killer guitarist, and he's sported the wirelessness since I first started seeing him play; it doesn't seem to mess with his tone at all.

What's so bad about it?

It does change your tone, but that is not an issue.... it is not a bad or good debate, it is a 'do you like it or not', so that is not an issue to me.

No, right now the whole wireless world is in a uproar because the Feds want to sell off the bands being used by wireless mics and devices to people like Apple and Microsoft etc to use for personal hand held devices. So you're wireless that you buy today could pick up Juniors beat box or whatever. (Like the early ones used to pick up cab drivers.)

I haven't kept up on this debate but few congress men care about our industry and we are getting very little support. The wireless companies started out making a lot of noise about it but then they shut up when they realized that we weren't going to continue to buy their products. At one point everybody went, "Huzzah! We've solved it!!!" until they tried some real world testing and found out that nobodys solution actually worked. At that point, that was about when I was injured last year and I've been more involved in my own issues. I also know that the government cannot be trusted, and I know better than to buy version 1.0 of anything. So I recommend waiting a couple of years before buying any wireless musical device.

I had an interview for a job with the Avlex Corporation today. They do a lot of work with wireless gadgets, an the guy told me the band in question is 700-750 khz. Shure, Audio Centron and a few others all were working that band. Avlex isn't on that band, but they are going with the digital systems anyway.
IF your wireless isn't on that band, you're okay.

+1. I mean, if you wanna dump it off for a new one, then go for it. I see nothing wrong really with the idea of using a wireless system, only because if you really need to sacrifice tone for mobility, then do it. I used to play with a pep band and I would run around the bleachers doing stupid stuff. If i didnt have such mobility i would probably be incapacitated towards what i needed to do. Just yeah, it's not practical in most cases with technology for it still needing to rise to par.

If you want to get some more current info, I imagine that googling wireless whitespace would get some more up to date info than I am able to provide.

There happens to be an article about IEMs which covers some of this in the October 2009 "Live Sound International" magazine. Apparently AT&T, Verizon, and some others carved up the bandwith for about $20 billion.

Interesting. I had been planning on buying some wireless in-ear-monitors for the band and I did not know about any of this.

Will have to look into it a bit more now. Thanks for the info everyone.

Great stuff...

I know there are issues over bands and demand but I didn't know it was going to knock anyone off their collective channels. That said I guess I need to consider the bands each brand is tied to and steer clear of potential interference.
*** It is simply interference I'm dealing with here correct??

I can't see them tracking me down like I'm on some military band and broadcasting licks to the troops! Though that might drive some to kill. Heaven forbid.

Like anything else that sucks tone (frik I hate that word) there's more squonk boxes on the floor to accommodate any losses... natural or imagined. Truth is I'm likely borderline autistic and I walk in circles (counterclockwise it appears). I'm gunna trip myself sooner or later.
This is a Health & Safety issue!

I'm in Canada too .. so I can likely get it covered by medical insurance!

When I get something I'll post back.
Thanks for the help guys.
pk

"That said I guess I need to consider the bands each brand is tied to and steer clear of potential interference.
*** It is simply interference I'm dealing with here correct??

I can't see them tracking me down like I'm on some military band and broadcasting licks to the troops! "

I don't know how it is in Canada, but in the US, yeah, illegal transmissions would be a violation of Federal law, so I guess that would the the FBI you'd hear knockin'.

You can do what you wanna, Abe, but....

the sales guys are all going to make nice noises and tell you that it is alright. Yeah, they want your money.

The governments are still dicking around. And as has been stated by them flat out, they just don't give a rats ass about musicians, we're too small in comparison to Verizon and AT&T.

I can't see a situation where -I- would be going to die if I didn't buy a wireless rig today. So I'm certainly going to wait until the various government agencies get their dicks back into their pants before I walk down that particular street.

In the article that i cited, the purchasers of the 700-750 bandwidth are trying to pressure the government to shut down current users by Feb, 2010.

Not really OK. There are a number of frequency bands used for various sorts of entertainment, sports, civil, communications, etc. purposes, including formerly unused guard bands in the analog TV range, & most of these are being eyed by corporations for commercial use. The whole wireless industry is in massive disarray right now as proposals & counterproposals fly back & forth. The upshot is that the Bush administration wanted to sell pretty much all publicly held assets to private industry & not surprisingly there was a whole lot of pushback from the portion of private industry that wasn't going to win the big expensive parts of the bandwidth. Like all the manufacturers of wireless microphone systems. Anyway, it's been hopelessly mired in debate for a number of years now & none of the manufacturers really know what's going to happen to their industry until it's been sorted out. Quite likely the current administration is not as gung ho about turning public property into a profit stream for a few wealthy mega-corporations as the previous administration was, & the makers of wireless mics & guitar systems will continue to have a business they can pursue.

Scott Fraser

Doubt the FCC is out there trying to track down users of unauthorized freaqs as you can watch them all in concert and on TV so there's no big govt conspiracy here to worry about...never use wireless but if I did, I'd be more worried about making sure everyone on stage is using the right/different freaq and someone is in control of all the rogue systems that may show up at a concert/gig...It sure looks nice to be mobile and do away with all or most of the chords on stage...

I see all of the new groups using ear monitors on TV so I'm figuring it must be the newest wave of the future...anybody out there using ear monitors and if so, what do you think of them? I saw the Rolling Stones jerk theirs out at one of their concerts...

" & none of the manufacturers really know what's going to happen to their industry until it's been sorted out. Quite likely the current administration is not as gung ho about turning public property into a profit stream for a few wealthy mega-corporations as the previous administration was, & the makers of wireless mics & guitar systems will continue to have a business they can pursue."

Yes, but much has already been auctioned off, and the new owners want to take possession.

Indeed, wireless manufacturers will eventually be on more solid ground, and this is what I am suggesting... wait until that happens. Tours rent, and rental companies can make money on what they have and what they need to buy to support the tours. But the average musician who wants to buy, buy once, and buy right would be well off waiting a while.

"Doubt the FCC is out there trying to track down users of unauthorized freaqs as you can watch them all in concert and on TV so there's no big govt conspiracy here to worry about..."

Not a conspiriacy. The government auctioned off the frequency bands previously used by, among others, wireless mics and IEMs. The guys who bought that stuff want to use it... after all, they paid for it.

Among the very possible fears is that any guy in the audience or walking by the performance venue, innocently using is whatever wireless device, can destroy your performance.

"...never use wireless but if I did, I'd be more worried about making sure everyone on stage is using the right/different freaq and someone is in control of all the rogue systems that may show up at a concert/gig..."

I've both used and run wireless for many many years. Ken Schaffer of Shaffer/VegaDiversity tried to sell me my first wireless rig, which was big as an army footlocker and had to be located quite a distance from the stage. ELO had several of these, and at the time they were the shit. These days it is not uncommon to have 30 or more wireless mics on the stage for a musical or play.

"I see all of the new groups using ear monitors on TV .."

IEMs are really cool if you know what you are doing and if your monitor guy knows what he is doing. If you don't, you can destroy your hearing. If he doesn't, he can destroy your hearing.

" I saw the Rolling Stones jerk theirs out at one of their concerts..."

There must have been a technical problem. Typically on newer tours, there aren't wedges and there is no way to get a coherent sound if you pull out your IEMs.

Absolutely. Wireless is the last thing I'd be investing in for a guitar system right now.

Freelancer friends of mine who do production audio for film & video are in a serious quandary at the moment. They have to keep up with the need for ever more channels of wireless on a set, while the manufacturers are telling them they don't know which way it will go, & that any new gear may be unusable in the very near future. My friends are buying used stuff that they would feel OK about having to walk away from if the channels disappear. And in that industry used good wireless is about $2500 a channel just for the transmitter & receiver. The mic is extra.

Scott Fraser

Thanks for the info Bill, still wondering if anyone on this thread is using the IEM's and if so, what they think about them...do you monitor the full band? your instrument? vocals? and hopefully noones blowing your ears out so I wonder if they also help block out or cushion the loudness of the onstage amps, drums, etc...? (kinda like ear plugs) I could see the usefulness of not having to pack around a bunch of monitors....

When I mixed The Residents on tour a few years back they were all on IEMs, three wired & three wireless. I thought they were great because the stage was a lot quieter without monitors & I was able to do a real mix of the band, from fortissimo all the way down to where you could the singer acoustically. I love them. They're Shure endorsees, so we had a ton of Shure stuff. Every day in each new city I did a frequency sweep & found the clearest channels for the wireless mics & the IEMs & we never took RF hits anywhere, in Toronto, Montreal, NY, Boston, DC or Chicago. All good.

Scott Fraser

"...do you monitor the full band? your instrument? vocals? and hopefully noones blowing your ears out so I wonder if they also help block out or cushion the loudness of the onstage amps, drums, etc...? (kinda like ear plugs) I could see the usefulness of not having to pack around a bunch of monitors...."

Sorry that I was not clear. (Assuming ear molds here, I don't know anything about other solutions...) You cannot just monitor yourself, because ear molds do indeed work a lot like ear plugs.... can't be earplugs on theor own but as soon as you add a signal into them, you can't hear the world around you. This is why bands put up ambient mics to feed into the ear mix... so you can hear the room and the audience.

You have to have a mix of the band, but, if you've got enough monitor mixes, you can have your -own- mix of the band.

Some groups have gone so far as to have no speakers on stage at all.... this can be way cool for the overall sound, as nothing leaks into any other mic, muddying up the FOH mix.

My band has been using IEM's for over three years now. The IEM's are by far the one most important and effective piece of gear we have ever purchased. We monitor vocal and instrument mix, vocal harmonies improved dramatically with IEM's, over three years with the Shure system and never one problem of any kind. We carried our wedge stage monitors for the first two years while using the IEM's, we stopped using the wedges a year ago!

Okay, we are talkimg about two things here... the value of in ear monitors, which is high. And the problematical nature of buying any wireless product today, which is also high.

But what we have not mentioned are wired in ear monitors. Drummers and most keyboardists don't need wireless. Many guitar and bass players don't need wireless. You can have in ear monitors without going wireless. And it is a lot cheaper.