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Lav G3 Weirdness


stephensharrod

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So I'm shooting right now. And the Sennhesier G3 wireless is being strange. I'm using a SD 552 and have three lavs plug into to their inputs respectively. The signal seems to be going in and out, when I check them my voice varies in volume and the signal gets slightly louder then softer. Again they are g3 lavs and have OST mics on them. I've changed the frequencies to no avail, there is an ac on cause we haven't started shooting yet, but I don't think that would be effecting the signal level would it? The boom is ok though..any thoughts?

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" .any thoughts? "

I would hope that your three years of experience have already taught you that problem solving and troubleshooting are a huge part of the gig...

your post includes very little useful information for remote troubleshooting, and I suspect you need to solve this problem quickly...

if you are personally less experienced with the specific gear (which you should have checked out before going to the set!) all the needed and useful manuals are available on-line,

One of the things I make real clear to my students is that when picking up gear (school, rental, even from a friend) a thorough check of the gear and the setup is required ASAP, and before going to the set for the shoot...

OK, I see you were working with the gear yesterday... so, what is different today ??

trial and error, substitution, and all the usual tricks are at your disposal as well...

all of the gear you mention is good stuff, when working properly and if all the interconnections are also correct and working,...

Edited by studiomprd
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Yes, it's definitely something to do with RF, I know their range is not the best, but it's not the connections and its not the mic's. We are shooting on a college campus so there's probably all kinds of signals going around. And the lavs are frequency range A, which is the equivalent to blocks 19 and 20?

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" No shit Sherlock. " ?

I was not so sure " The signal seems to be going in and out, when I check them my voice varies in volume and the signal gets slightly louder then softer. ", and not really even now " Yes, it's definitely something to do with RF, " as (FM) audio levels do not generally go up and down with signal (RF) strength.

If it is RF interference, and it certainly could be, then there is a(n obvious) remedy, but the information still seems insufficient.

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There is some "voodoo" associated with RF, and nothing but time and experience can help you solve these problems. I've encountered areas that were flawless, then moved one mile and was buried in interference. I've even had RF issues change within a few hours (I assume somebody local turned on some machinery that created spurious RFI). Crap happens.

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I have some G2s and G3s. Sometimes they're perfect. Sometimes they take tons of hits even after scanning. Sometimes they do unexplainable things.

A couple of times they've sounded like they had a noise gate on them. The times that has happened were all in hard surface rooms so I assumed there may have been some kind of strange phase cancellation thing going on. I tried all different squelches, frequencies, changed out TX and RX, cable and mic. It didn't sound too bad though so I let it go in the end. Ya just never know with those things! But typically they'll be fine.

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" Scanned frequencies, selected them, still interference. "

so it wasn't 'weirdness', it was....

interference.

BTW, on Senn Evo systems the scanning only scans the preprogrammed frequencies of the group. to find clear channels to use, adjusting the actual frequencies (beyond the preprogrammed groups) is often necessary, and yes, that tends to require trial and error.

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The thing with fixing RF trouble is that it is sometimes very vague.

With the G3s, I would say to try different banks. And make sure all systems are in the same bank (that's in the manual, I think). Keep listening and try to get a bank that has less noise sounds coming from it.

Otherwise, you can improve things by moving your position bit (where you're standing). Moving your receivers away from the recorder and from each other. Improving the transmitter position and reducing pressure on the antennas also helps.

Sometimes you just need different blocks. For some reason, I can never use Block G around where I live in Queens. Sometimes a particular block just doesn't work in some places.

Sawrab

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  • 2 weeks later...

What's funny is later on, I was recording with five lavs, all on one track and the boom on the other. No real issues, other than steadicam interference. (Has that happened to anyone?) We were out in a park, so I was worried about signal there, or interference but it was fine. So I'm pretty sure it was that space we were in, but I'm definitely gonna keep my ears open if it happens again.

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