Rob Beal

Oooh, a topic near and dear to my heart. After developing mild but persistent back pain a couple years ago I started tweaking my ENG/docu kit in an effort to reduce weight and size while keeping functionality high. I'm pretty happy with my current setup. Here's a pic of my (very beat-up looking) bag as it is right now: I've got two SRa's going into a 302. The second SRa goes through a custom built active fader box and then into the Mix In. The main XLR outs from the 302 feed two SMa's for a camera hop to another SRa. The Tape Out feeds into my Zaxcom ZFR100/STA150. The output of the ZFR100 feeds into a Comtek transmitter (not pictured here, but it would go in the left outside pouch). Everything is powered by a Swit 7.2V battery and is controlled by a single master switch. It runs for about 6 hours with everything powered up. So in total, I've managed to cram 4 channels of wireless, one boom track, a stereo camera hop, a Comtek feed, and a 2-channel timecode synced backup recording, into a bag that weighs 8.6lbs! I've traveled around the world with this thing and it hasn't hurt my back once. Now I wake up pain-free. -Rob

Agreed, I got burned by this a couple weeks ago (forgot to confirm that tracks 7&8 had asterisks beside them when I armed them in the heat of the moment). I know it's a user error but in my opinion if a track is armed it should be set to record by default! Seems more intuitive (to me) that way. -Rob

I ordered one of the materials and it does seem to significantly reduce the RF spray from my Zaxcom ZFR100. It allows me to put my ZFR100 about 2" from my Lectro SRs. I forget which exact material it is but I'll take a look when I get home and post the link. -Rob

Good points Jeff, and the iPhone version of the mobile site does look very nice and is a good alternative to Tapatalk. For people who do prefer Tapatalk and are having this issue, I tried going to the settings page within the app and turning off the "auto refresh" feature, and so far it looks like it fixed it! Unread posts now appear on the "latest posts" page and seem to stay there. When you want to refresh the list you simply pull the page down for a second or two until it reloads.

The "latest posts" feature does work for me now but it is a bit temperamental. When I load Tapatalk after not using it for a while it does list all the unread posts since the last time I logged in, but if I then close Tapatalk for more than a few minutes, the next time I log in it marks all the same posts as read (and removes them from the "unread posts" list). It does this even if I leave Tapatalk open in the background without logging-out. There must be an automatic refresh feature that kicks in after a set amount of time. The problem is it thinks you've read all the threads even if you never opened them, which obviously is not the most useful feature. If you want to catch up on all the latest posts you need to read them all in one session before it does the auto-refresh. It sounds like more of a Tapatalk issue rather than an issue with how the new forum is set up, but it is strange since I never encountered this quirk on the last forum. I'll try sending Tapatalk an email and see if they reply. Rob

When I load the new forum in Tapatalk the "Latest" page no longer shows all the unread posts. It always says "There are no new posts to view". When I go into the full forum view, threads with new posts are still marked with a "NEW" flag, but it's much less efficient to go through every forum section individually. Putting all the unread posts on one page is one of the best things about Tapatalk and it worked great on the last forum. Anyone else experiencing this problem? It could be an issue with my account but I've tried re-logging in, re-installing Tapatalk, etc and nothing seems to work. Hopefully it gets sorted out because it's a great way to quickly catch up on the forum! Rob

Since I am getting RF spray from my ZFR100, which has no transmitter, it is likely that some of the RF spray from the TRX900 is coming from the recorder mechanism (or timecode generator) and therefore wouldn't be eliminated by the filtered antenna. Getting the zaxcom unit physically away from the bag should eliminate the issue though... strange that that isn't the case in Tim's setup.

With respect to the Zaxcom RF bleed issue, I'm using a setup right now with two SRa's in a bag and recently picked up a Zaxcom ZFR100 to use as a backup recorder (with the STA150). Even though the ZFR100 has no transmitter function at all, I'm STILL seeing plenty of RF bleed in my SRa's. Enough to cause them to display that "check freq" message. The only fix I've found so far is to get the ZFR100 far enough away by putting it up on the shoulder strap of the bag, but that is certainly an annoying way to operate. I don't understand why a flash-based recorder with no transmitter is leaking RF. Where is it coming from? Is there any fix, either on my end or Zaxcom's? I could try switching to 411a's but the whole point of this setup is to have the smallest, lightest rig possible, and for that I love the SRa. Rob

Can anyone think of a way to get the Zaxconvert software running on an iPad? It would be easy enough to access the files from a TRX900 or ZFR100/200 using a card reader adaptor. It would be pretty cool if you could also convert the files and then dump them onto a USB thumb drive. It would be nice if Zaxcom created an app for it (Lectrosonics have come out with some cool uses for the iPad so far), but assuming they don't, is there another way to get the software running? I remember seeing a DOS emulator a while ago, I think it's still in the app store. Are there any windows or OSX emulators that would do the trick? Anyway, just an idea I had bouncing around. Rob

Looks fantastic! Love everything about it, it incorporates a lot of the ideas I've had for designing my own cart (a project that I keep putting off!). Nice job.

I will, thanks for the tip!

Doing some research for a reality/docu shoot in northern Argentina in December, most likely involving 5 soundmen with basic packages (mixer, boom, 2 lavs, 2 ch wireless camera hop). It would be great to have at least 10 Lectro SM/411 systems on the same block. I'll be doing my own searches obviously, and hope to bring some soundmen and equipment with me from Canada, but if anyone has a good lead on professional rental houses and local sound mixers, I'd love to hear them. English speaking is a must, and preferably with experience on other reality shows like Amazing Race. I've heard Buenos Aires has a healthy scene so I'm looking forward to hooking up with some good locals. You can leave a post for me here, or email me at rob.beal.inc@gmail.com. Thanks, Rob