Members Art Flood Posted February 22, 2015 Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 Here is an interesting one for you. Some of you will have probably seen my posts about this on the Cacophony Forums. I control a Mackie DL1608 with an iPad. It all works pretty well until I get within about six feet of my wireless microphone (Shure SLX4 L4 638-662 MHz). Within this zone the app for the mixer freezes and becomes completely unresponsive - move away from the microphone and all is well again. (BTW the microphone works perfectly there is no audio issues). This has been going on for a while an I have been slowly eliminating possible causes. This is where I am up to. 1. It is only an issue with my iPad Air. Older iPads do not have the problem (I am not sure if other iPad Airs have the problem but it is on my list of thing to test). I have bluetooth and cell data turned off. It really sounds like my iPad Air is faulty. But here is the thing...... 2. At home it works fine and I cannot replicate the problem. Even with the iPad 60ft (with me holding both the microphone and the iPad) or so away from the wireless router there is no problem. It has to be something messing with the wireless connection. Next time I set up I'll try turning on the pa, lights etc one thing at a time and see how that goes. Don you'll be pleased to know that I have had no problems with Line6 digital mic setups. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted February 22, 2015 Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 Try changing the router/ipad between the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands, see if that makes a difference. Also try turning cellular, not just cell data, off completely. You might need to pop the SIM chip to do this, I forget. Are you using the same router? My wild-arsed-guess is that the microphone is emitting RFI several octaves above its nominal frequency, and that this is doing something to the iPad like saturating the antenna or something. Has the microphone capsule ever been damaged? Are all the shields still in place and grounded? Wes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members abzurd Posted February 22, 2015 Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 You may not have a 5 Ghz router, but if you don't, go out and get one and you'll never have that problem again. You'll also greatly reduce the possibility of issues with both your microphone and ipad in venues as most wireless is still 2.4 Ghz and having your mixer at 5 Ghz will be one less thing competing for space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Art Flood Posted February 22, 2015 Author Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 Hi Wes and Abzurd, Thanks for the feedback, I am using a 5GHz router and it works perfectly. Wes I suspected something weird with the microphone too but note that it plays fine with the older ipads. It's only a few months old and hasn't been dropped (yet). I nearly bought 4 of them but thought I'd better try one first - and I am glad I did. The odd thing is that whatever is causing the problem it doesn affect my older ipads - only the newer ipad air. It seems like the new thinner ipad air doesn't reject stray rf as well as the old ipad 2. Strange? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted February 22, 2015 Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 There may be issues with intermodulation products with higer level UHF signals. While I would not expect the issue with 5GHz, it would be more likely with 2.4GHz as the bands are closer and therefore more suseptable. I haven't run any numbers but gut feeling is that it would be difference frequencies and possibly their multiples. This is the chief issue with running anything wireless in a mission critical application, you do not have any control over what intereference might be present. What would happen if you were confronted with UHF 5 watt radios at a venue where you were relying on your wireless connection? 5 watt radios can cause issues even with some analog gear, the power levels are so high and operated so close that in many cases it's impossible to do anything about. Maybe Don has some information on this, as he has products that operate in the same 2.4GHz band? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted February 22, 2015 Members Share Posted February 22, 2015 Every transmitter on the planet is interfering with your receiver to some extent. The "channel frequency" is just the center frequency of a big pyramid (just like on your graphic eq) but there is still plenty of energy being transmitted even many octaves/decades away from that center frequency. If you think about someone speaking to you live in person they are just speaking in a normal voice. But if they spoke at that same level but we're 1/4" away from your ear it would seem like they were screaming in your ear. So so even though your 600MHz mic seems to be spaced far away from 2.4GHz wi-if it really isn't if you get close enough. Add to that Wi-fi is not a very robust scheme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 1, 2015 Members Share Posted March 1, 2015 Here's my setup. An RM32AI with an XD-V70 and an XD-V75 in the same rack case. I had an Apple AirPort Extreme sitting on top of the case. I kept getting dropouts on the wireless mics. Ended up going without. Were they too close to the router? I think the router may have been in both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. No problems with the iPad connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Art Flood Posted March 1, 2015 Author Members Share Posted March 1, 2015 I do a show where I sit a rack of four XD-V75 on top of my mixer and have no issues. The trick for me was to set my router to only use the 5GHz band. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 1, 2015 Members Share Posted March 1, 2015 Thanks I'll get into the router settings and turn it to only 5ghz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted March 2, 2015 Members Share Posted March 2, 2015 Here's my setup. An RM32AI with an XD-V70 and an XD-V75 in the same rack case. I had an Apple AirPort Extreme sitting on top of the case. You should never place any transmitter very close to a receiver's antennas, even if they are not close in frequency. You are in effect screaming into the receiver's ear. The pro way to run would be to use paddles so you can get them away from the router. Are both of your Line 6 units running in the same RF mode? I'd recommend using RF1 first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted March 3, 2015 Members Share Posted March 3, 2015 Paddles? Can you explain further? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted March 3, 2015 Members Share Posted March 3, 2015 Paddle antennas are antennas that can be used remotley. They are called that because they look like paddles. http://l6c-acdn.line6.net/data/6/0a064389b0e05367ce90e9b31/image/png/file_r17408.png Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted March 3, 2015 Members Share Posted March 3, 2015 Ah! Thanks, Don. So, basically a panel antenna that fits on a mic stand. Slick. I guess that's RG-58 with BNC ends? Wes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted March 4, 2015 Members Share Posted March 4, 2015 Paddles are directional antennas, log periodic elements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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