Your answer may vary by location, the amount of wireless channels you use at a typical event, or your level of RF training- and a maybe a little luck.  But regardless of whether you’re coordinating dozens of mic channels in downtown Manhattan or firing up a single channel at a rural church service, deploying wireless audio systems for A/V events is not getting any easier. 

Since their introduction to film, TV, and broadcast in the 1970s, wireless  microphone systems have exploded in popularity and become standard at most of today’s live events.  Wireless systems are now offered at every price level and no longer just for pro users. But the widespread adoption of wireless audio systems has come at a price.  Nearly everyone can recall that ugly, sinking feeling when your event audio starts to dropout or encounters interference from a third party source, producing static and and other nasty artifacts.  The mic user becomes flustered and tries to push on, the audience becomes uncomfortable and begins to tune out, the venue owner complains to the sound crew- and the frantic troubleshooting begins.  One engineer recently lamented, “RF is equal parts rocket science and black magic.”

Wireless mic operators have lost a third of their available spectrum

Aside from the internal issues of coordinating multiple channels at an event, there are a multitude of external factors operators must address in today’s increasingly crowded RF spectrum.  Historically, as unlicensed devices, microphones have shared the UHF band with TV broadcasters.  But following a range of regulatory actions by FCC, microphone users have lost a third of their available RF spectrum, and the UHF band is set to welcome a range of new fixed and mobile data devices that will make wireless even more challenging than it is today.  As opposed to TV stations, which are fixed channels in a given area, these new UHF band data devices will hop frequencies, check for surrounding devices before transmitting, and access a geo-location database.  The jury is out on whether this intricate database system and “listen before talk” will work in the real world (and especially at scale), but from a policy standpoint, it’s become clear that wireless mic users face an uphill battle against the national broadband plan and so-called white space devices.  When these data devices soon walk in and out of the venue with the audience, it is easy to see why the pro A/V industry is so concerned about one its most critical tools.

RFvenue’s approach to the problem is not to simply migrate wireless equipment to some other part of the RF spectrum, but to enable current wireless systems to operate more reliably with less available spectrum.  Our team founded RFvenue to achieve a higher degree of performance for these important audio systems, and the means to that end is a combination of innovative RF sensor technology and new wireless hardware and software platforms.

Our technology is spectrum efficient: more devices, less spectrum  

By optimizing reception areas for wireless systems using our patent-pending Local Field Sensor technology, desired microphone signal reception quality is increased, while interference sources outside the reception area are decreased.  The overall sensitivity of the system is purposefully lower than a typical high gain system, to allow nearfield microphone systems to gain tactical advantage over other devices.  I encourage you to review our products and company and contact one of our representatives to arrange a free trial.  We are a small, customer-focused tech startup- everything we do revolves around solving your real-world wireless problems.  If you have ideas or feedback for us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch on our contact page, comment on our blog, or reach out on Twitter @RFvenue!