Fred Salles

I have the same experience outdoor with the sharkfins pointing at the actors, they surely outrange the omnis. Indoor however, especially in a place where you have one or several rooms between the antenna and the actors, the omnis perform better in my experience. Again, choosing both in problematic indoor locations, one directional and one omni is worth the try and if your rx allows it you can see which one of the 2 antennas is chosen by the machine.

Sommer Cable from Germany makes very decent cables and has become a good alternative for some application in my kit to Canare, Mogami, Belden or Gotham. You have the Sommer Cable SC-CICADA 4 , starquad at 3.4mm outershell, not as strong as the Belden 1804A but easier to solder and very decent anyway. the Sommercable Scuba 14, one pair+shield at 3.8mm (perfect TA4 cable for non starquad short cable) and the very thin the Sommer Cable Cicada SO-D14, one pair+shield at 2.6mm https://www.sommercable.com/en-us/Patch-Microphone-Cable-SC-Scuba-14-2-x-0-14-mm2-PVC-OE-3-80-mm-black/200-0311#neonCfg=pulength::pu100

For the first time I dare to disagree with Constantin here 😉 First there are several omni active antennas that includes gain and filters, (Wisycom AFDA for example). Or were you talking about actual quality as in performing better? Secondly I found that when working indoor the combination of one omni and one directional antenna for the diversity duo works very well. I believe you do benefit from reflected RF signal from the omni when in tricky situation. Sometimes I use both omni and remoting one away from the cart (example: tracking shot following characters walking within two or several rooms in a house.)

PROs: 1- I do not have to worry about any conflicting bands of the UHF mike tx (I use Wisycom MTP60 &MCR54 rx so I can pretty much use any band I want in the 470-700 and more.) 2- The range is pretty good, even within buildings. It feels that in some situations it performs better than UHF bands, some not. On my last feature I had a rented system for a second IFB feed in UHF band, had one complain for each for the whole shoot but only these 2 😉 If I remember correctly I think the VHF complain occurred in a location that I did not properly scan (Kenyan village), and the UHF was from a long distance (open field) scene in the northern kenyan bush. Since the crew members with VHF IFB rx did not complain I assume it reached them fine. 3- the VHF band is actually quite wide (239 freq. available) so I do not struggle to find clean frequencies (using TX advance) CONs: 1- long antenna 2- stiff antenna 3- Scanning when moving to new location is mandatory as VHF is populated in very different frequencies even between cities 50km appart. NO chart really reliable can be found nor made. Soundwise no differences at all with T4&IFBlue in UHF.

Thank Matthias. You can disassemble the base without permanent damage? I have the nanopole ms0490a that allows to remove quickly the "pole" section but I did not know some of their bigger stands allow that too.

email sent

Thanks Henri and Nate. it seems that is the only solution I am able to find in Europe for now. I think I will have to give up the version with the anti twist dent.

Hello everyone, Currently working on upgrading my cart I am searching for a solution for a single telescopic pole to attach to it, in order to carry the bar with up to 4 antennas. Now bear in mind that it must be light so preferably aluminium and with an anti twist system. I came upon one like that on a rented cart but cannot find any trace of it online so far. The anti twist was a kind of dent along the poles that prevent the poles from twisting within in each other and that was very convenient when operating in a windy weather. I have no idea what the brand was. I do not think it was Manfrotto. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Regards Fred

Hi. No experience for a full cart but on a documentary for over the shoulder in a very remote area in Ethiopia a while ago. We thought we could charge our batteries camera and sound with solar panels. So we did some research before packing. Unfortunately the reality on the field was quite different. The power was probably insufficient for a fast enough charge and we could not leave the system out for a full day (mostly because of logistic but also fear of gear being stolen). So we ended up using a petrol generator to charge at night… Although solar panels and chargers are more efficient nowadays, for a cart on a feature i do not think it would be practical to power directly from a solar system nor charge. The only practical thing I believe possible is to have a semi fixed solar panel powered battery chargers station, somewhere it could be set a full day (production tent or catering etc). New big rechargeable battery power generators that we see on set nowadays are leading toward this solution.

Great link ! Thank you Daniel

It has not been an issue really on set. Maybe once out of 2 feature films and a couple of commercials. Not more than with R1a anyway. I do not know the Comtek of today, but for me battery life for IFB is not the number one decisive factor. I have not try to use the Eneloop Pro with the IFBlue, as I reserved them for my Wisy tx, but I bet they would allow the IFBlue to last a full day.

Bon Anniversaire JWSOUNDGROUP !! Well done and thank you Jeff Wexler for inspiring us all, all over the world. I did not know the creation of the site was related to RAMPS group. Probably the only "email newsgroup" I had regularly checked at the time. Hopefully my English has improved by now 😁

Yes that is what I understand. Oh and one last thing: The ability to clone the receivers via IR is such a breeze compare to the "push and release blindly" system on the R1a that I must confess I always found dreadfull. After a frequency change on the TX, you need change manually the frequency on one IFBlue rx unit only, the rest you clone. All settings are cloned so that is also a benefit (led on/off , backlight... no more unit behaving differently. And you can visually be sure all frequencies are correct.

About the "random little hits", I do not recall having these once the frequency is set after a clean scan . My system is VHF and I use TX advance to scan. When the frequency is not clean it is more random cuts than "hits" actually. Maybe check if your pilot tone bypass is not set to on.

As for the battery life, I use the stock Lectrosonics AA NIMH and they last around 8 hours, so not always a full day if client do not switch off during lunch. Also using TKA Aeonium NIMH 2100 mAh and they last about the same. It is difficult to be precise because it seems the headphone impedance and output level play a role in battery life. The director with HD25 (70ohm) needs a battery change per day. Most other crew battery change is random (higher impedance basic headphones). Overall, if I remember correctly it was about the same with R1a and IpowerUS 9v batteries, but maybe battery life was slightly better. Yes they will not last over 10 hours unless batteries are very new. But it was the same with R1a isnt't it?