USA Wireless Microphone Future - bad News and Good News and Bad News

R

Richard Crowley

Veteran
I just came across this 84 page document posted by the FCC:
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0811/FCC-15-100A1.pdf
Title: "In the Matter of: Promoting Spectrum Access for Wireless Microphone Operations [vs.] Expanding Economic and Innovation Opportunities of Spectrum through Incentive Auctions." The [vs.] was supplied by me as a snarky editorial remark.

For those who only recently came out from under their rock: The FCC has already taken away the popular 700 MHz band where many (most?) of our wireless audio gear was operating, and it looks like the 600 MHz band has only a short time left (a year or two?)

The rapid increase in demand for consumer digital wireless devices (cell phones, tablets, etc.) of course is driving the need for additional spectrum to accommodate all the high-speed (read: wide-band) users so we can stream the latest mindless sit-com (or "reality show") in full 4K HD to a 4 inch screen while we dangerously attempt to drive down the highway. I guess that is the price we pay for living in a modern, high-tech society.

The good news is that at least the wireless gear manufacturers have got the FCC to acknowledge that wireless microphones are a legitimate and necessary user of RF spectrum and should be officially accommodated even if they only continue to consume "table-scrap leftovers" of spectrum.

And the bad news is that wireless microphones (as most all other users) continue to be pushed up into higher and higher frequencies. One benefit of higher frequencies is that it better accommodates digital operation which certainly has quality and operational benefits. But higher and higher frequencies also make propagation more difficult because of more severe line-of-sight limitations caused by "RF shading" from having the transmitter on the other side of the subject's body and/or increased absorption and/or reflection phenomenon from higher frequencies.

I have concerns about the use of the 2.4GHz ISM band as we have seen in several new products from Audio Technica, Rode, and even Azden because that band is shared with WiFi, Bluetooth, and even microwave ovens and 2.4GHz already seems "over-booked" even before wireless microphones "discovered" it.

Alas, the document is written in a deadly combination of leagaleze and "government-speak", and it will take some time to read through the whole thing and try to digest what they are saying (if there is actually any clear indication in there at all). It looks like the commissioners' statements at the very end of the document may be a more "human-scale" place to start reading.

In any case, we can probably kiss our 600MHz gear good-bye in the near future and start shoving more $$$ into the piggy-bank in preparation for buying new wireless gear.
 
Richard Crowley said:
But higher and higher frequencies also make propagation more difficult because of more severe line-of-sight limitations caused by "RF shading" from having the transmitter on the other side of the subject's body and/or increased absorption and/or reflection phenomenon from higher frequencies.
Click to expand...

That's a problem that can be solved with a distributed antenna array, rather than a single point antenna.
 
Hey shooting microwaves through an actors body... What could go wrong.

When a politician can't get a clear freq making a stump speech, that is when they will stop selling of our airwaves. Actually they would probably just grab another piece and reserve it for political use only.

I am really glad that doing 90% post I don't have to deal with this much. Though I do have some systems and most are probably be axed when this goes through.
 
Folks, while this is an important issue that most certainly affects all of us, let us please be careful not to make this discussion political. Due to the nature of the topic, it is a fine line. Please be aware of it, though.
 
Alex H. said:
Folks, while this is an important issue that most certainly affects all of us, let us please be careful not to make this discussion political. Due to the nature of the topic, it is a fine line. Please be aware of it, though.
Click to expand...

Does that mean I can't blame this on Grover Cleveland?
 
In any case, we can probably kiss our 600MHz gear good-bye in the near future and start shoving more $$$ into the piggy-bank in preparation for buying new wireless gear.


And they call me crazy for transitioning over to silent films.
 
Alex H. said:
Folks, while this is an important issue that most certainly affects all of us, let us please be careful not to make this discussion political. Due to the nature of the topic, it is a fine line. Please be aware of it, though.
Click to expand...
The FCC is "political" (or at least Government) by definition.
I can't see that it has anything to do with partisan politics.
 
Richard Crowley said:
The FCC is "political" (or at least Government) by definition.
I can't see that it has anything to do with partisan politics.
Click to expand...

Yes, the FCC is a government agency. Discussion of frequency blocks that may be sold off is one thing, but once we stray into the realm of discussing who is paying off whom and who is looking out for a political career, we have entered into politics beyond the actual topic. Partisan or non-partisan, we can maintain the discussion without going there.

Now, let's steer this back on topic.
 
Since I am apparently the one who strayed, I will qualify what I meant. It was not a partisan comment, and yes maybe a tangent. And while it would be more satisfying to lay the issue at the feet of one party or another the "blame" is pretty evenly spread over everyone. I would also argue that it is an inherently political issue in that "we the people" are supposed to own the airwaves, they have been sold off over the years, often with a negative impact on the general population. And while this topic was started about wireless microphone freq. the same thing has happened and is an ongoing battle with amateur radio frequencies. That may sound trivial but in pretty much all major disasters it's the amateur radio operators that were the sole lines of communications. 911, Katrina, the shuttle debits search were all facilitated by amateur radio operators because nothing else was working.

So while I agree that politics per say is a topic for another list how can one even talk about a purely political decision with out mentioning politics?

I will slap my wrist for being snarky in the original post but if politics can't be mentioned then the whole thread boils down to "kiss your gear good by". and then lock it because any talk of how one might change the course or what direction one might go to try and safe guard against loosing even more space HAS to involve politics because it is politicians who are making the decisions.

I'll stay out of this thread and you can delete my posts if you want.
 
Yes, the discussion has a political aspect... But on the technical side, the FCC is pushing for better spectrum utilization. Analog TV was pretty inefficient in the 6 MHz bandwidth allocated... given that one now can get HD, and various resolutions way beyond NTSC/PAL specs, clearly shows that inefficiency...

One way manufacturers could address the problem of 'what happens next' is to make a device, where the 'RF' portion is a module, and depending on the vagaries of the future, allow a customer (or a service buro) to replace the old RF module with the new... but the wireless mic vendors responded with 'that will add cost'... well... not as much cost to the consumer as buying a new set of complete mic transmitters and receivers everytime there's a change in the spectrum allocations.

The order does open up previously unavailable bands such as around 944, as well as some lower VHF regions... there is also the 900 MHz ISM band.

Of course these days finding an RF frontend for the 2.4 GHz band is childs play... so, probably the cost conscious vendors will be using that as best they can...

In any case, the FCC is also pushing for better spectrum utilization... and there is only so much one can do with analog... so hence the 'push' really is for more digital, which allows for a number of things, frequency hopping, FEC, 'local to the transmitter pack' recording, etc.

Of course it also means that the analog front end in the transmitter is high quality because there's no recovering of the analog signal once digitized.
 
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