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FCC mandate coming into effect. Check your mics


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Not that I imagine they'll be showing up at bar shows looking for "your papers" :cop: (except maybe in AZ)

 

OPERATION OF WIRELESS MICROPHONES IN THE 700 MHZ BAND

IS PROHIBITED AFTER JUNE 12, 2010

 

Under a new FCC rule, anyone who uses a wireless microphone (or similar device) that operates in the 700 MHz Band will have to stop operating their wireless microphone (or similar device) no later than June 12, 2010.

 

For more information: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/wirelessmicrophones/

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Yeah, thousands of dollars later, all of our old 700 mhz mics have been swapped for shiny new compliant ones or sold to a guy in New Zealand. I still have one old Sennheiser IEM300 In-ear kit that I'm using right up until June 11th. Bastards.

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I PM'd a guy on another Forum who was trying to sell a wireless IEM system that was in the 700 band, w/o disclosing that it fell into the banned category and he was very dismissive.

 

Said that he was a "pro" (works as a stagehand at a Casino) and that everyone he knew was going to just keep using them.

 

I didn't want to get into it with him, so I just forwarded some links to the mods and let them decide what to do about it.

 

Interested in your thoughts?

 

MG

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Honestly, I can't imagine many the semi-pros and weekend warriors just giving up their hard-earned equipement for some obscure gov't mandate. It hasn't done anything to stem the CB and Ham enthusiasts from souping up their transmitters. In fact, I wouldn't be surprized to see a bunch of the bands I work with all the sudden showing up with new wireless mics.

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Screw the FCC. I may just buy a couple extra 700's and patch them up to a 24/7 running loops from my house, job and car that repeats "Eat my shorts" over, over and over again. Will they ever be heard? Probably not. Will it fill the anti-authoritarian void I've been feeling lately? Damn straight it will. :)

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For us weekend warrior types, I don't think it's a question of worrying about FCC black helicopter SWAT team raids at a gig.

 

It's more like... how mission-critical is your wireless rig? Are you ready to swap quickly to a hard-wired or alternate wireless setup, if an audience member walks into the room with the next-gen digital handheld gadget that uses the spectrum, and steps all over your signal? Or a local public safety or emergency responder does the same thing, with an even higher-powered signal? It may not be happening for a while, but it might eventually.

 

For me, gigs are hectic enough without worrying about that. So I went "legit" recently with a Senn G3 for two of the instruments in our small band. Even with that, I'm having to spend time hunting frequencies sometimes. I just don't want any extra hassles with something like wireless, that isn't always reliable even under the best of conditions.

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For us weekend warrior types, I don't think it's a question of worrying about FCC black helicopter SWAT team raids at a gig.


 

 

The FCC has never had the resources to patrol for violators. They only acted when they received a complaint.

 

However Verizon, Qualcomm, an ATT have MUCH larger bank accounts. I would be very surprised if they didn't patrol their very expensive new turf.

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However Verizon, Qualcomm, an ATT have MUCH larger bank accounts. I would be very surprised if they didn't patrol their very expensive new turf.

 

 

Hell Don, they can't even deliver satisfactory cell service to many of their customers. I would rather they focus their efforts towards matters that we pay for and they don't deliver as promised...

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Hell Don, they can't even deliver satisfactory cell service to many of their customers. I would rather they focus their efforts towards matters that we pay for and they don't deliver as promised...

 

 

I guess they would say that's what they're doing. By moving into the 700's they'll be ten times as powerful.

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FCC? FCC? We don't have no stinking FCC!!!


Just make sure you allow shipping to Canada on your Ebay sales of those wireless sets.


The CDN dollar is close to par.
:thu:

 

you will when the military industrial complex finally makes the move to unionize the north amaerican continent and makes us all slaves, look for around 10-15 years from now. how well do like RFID chips?

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I guess they would say that's what they're doing. By moving into the 700's they'll be ten times as powerful.

 

 

Well, it still comes down to available resources. Which costs more -- managing a fleet of sniffer trucks and enforcers, or just designing new digital gear with frequency-hopping, multiplexing and encryption to automatically work around legacy analog gear? They'll have to be doing that anyway. Enforcement is redundant if the new digital gear works fine, and just trashes the function of older analog gear as a side effect.

 

Another problem is the PR hit for any real enforcement. Can you imagine Verizon busting into a church service, and stopping it because it's on a 700mHz band? Or shutting down a rock band in a club where the audience is all kids using high-bandwidth smartphones, who are their main customers for new digital gadgets? C'mon...

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It isn't just the cell carriers that will be using the 700 Mhz band, it is public safety as well. No person or persons are going to barge into any event, but their high power signals will. There you are playing your guitar thru your wireless unit into your miced Marshall stack when a police car on the street calls in for wants and warrents on a suspect vehicle. Not only will the dispatcher get the request for information, but so will your audience, probably at a level higher than you are currently playing. It may not be distinguishable, just noise, but it could be there. Or if your in a church, whose back corner of the lot is leased out to a cellular carrier transmiter (it brings in good revenue for the church) that uses the 700 Mhz band, and it will, your wireless unit will be worthless as well, unless you want your audience to hear the constant static that is coming out of your PA. Nah, if you are in any somewhat populated area, you need to get rid of the 700 Mhz stuff.

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I'm betting we'll see a rash of such wireless systems on eBay soon. How vigorously is eBay going to police such auctions, if at all? I assume it will still be perfectly fine to own and sell such products, if not operate.

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Does anyone have a link to a discussion among well-informed users of the technical problems that would make owning/operating 700mhz systems problematic?

 

Almost everything I have heard/read is either hypothetical or from wireless manufacturers, and since I am only tangentially familiar with wireless it is tough to say if these are real concerns.

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