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Zaxcom New Modulation


RadoStefanov

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I agree. I do notice that it is quite a bit better in sensitivity as I have one QRX100 with the new modulation and one with the old side by side. While pushing the range, the red LEDs light up far less frequently than the old modulation.

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Any way of quantifying the difference?

In my limited experience 75%-100% especially with walls, behind corners, and with cars and other objects in between.

It is very impressive how good it works with whips.

Hi lads, where did you get the new firmware? Has it been officially released, I don't see it on the Zaxcom site.

Trev

As far as I know Zaxcom will release it next few days...

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It holds very well when receptions is low.  Compared to the old modulation it is a lot better.

I agree. I do notice that it is quite a bit better in sensitivity as I have one QRX100 with the new modulation and one with the old side by side. While pushing the range, the red LEDs light up far less frequently than the old modulation.

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So today I got the new zaxcom upgrade. I installed it on two of my QRX100 and TRX900LA. Upgrade was as easy as always. “keep in mind - to upgrade the QRX100 you need to run the TX with the older modulation”. It is very easy to switch between old and new modulation on the trx and qrx100 receives both automatically.

 

All the tests were done in and around my TV SHOW set where I have been working for almost 2 years. I chose to do the test there because I am very familiar how RF works and how much I can push the limits of my wireless.

 

First I setup TX1 in the very far corner of the shop on a chair next to a TV– top right on the picture. bellow. There were a lot of cars in the shop killing line of sight.

Second I laved TX2 on a person working in the studio – bottom right on the pictur below .

I first tested with whips “small font on the picture” and after that with dipoles connected to my micplexer “LARGE FONT ON THE PICTURE”.

 

Walking around with the whips I immediately realized how much better and stable the reception was compared to the older modulation.  Now I was able to walk through buildings and around the parking lot while having good to medium reception. But what really struck me was how well the qrx100 behaved when reception was very low. With the older modulation, when the reception got very low I immediately anticipated drop outs. With the new modulation it just kept working great while I was walking even further away. Another improvement was going behind cars and corners even with my body on the way. The old modulation sometimes really straggled when line of sight was interrupted. This is not the case with the new modulation

 

In my opinion the range was increased by 100% using the whips and the new modulation. I was able to receive clearly from places that could not even get bits and pieces of signal before.

              

After I was done with the whips I tried the micplexer and Dipole Antennas on my harness. This was an absolute pleasure. I walked even further away, hid behind and inside cars. I went behind corners and multiple walls. Signal was stable. When I really pushed the range, even if one antenna blinked red the other antenna was great and vice versa.

 

In my opinion range was increased by 80-100% using the mixplexer and dipoles.

 

NOW GET THIS:

After I was done I sat down to mentally digest the improvements when I realized that the entire time I was testing, I was not recording!!! My trx900LA are setup to work at 50mW when STOPed and only throttle to 125mW when I start RECORDing.  SO THE TEST WAS NOT PERFORMED AT OPTIMAL POWER SETTING!

 

Unfortunately I had to go and I did not have time to test the transmitters at 125mW.

 

In conclusion I am really shocked! THIS IS A MAJOR IMPROVEMENT. I can only imagine how well the new modulation will work at 125mW and even better with my sharkfins on my antenna mast.  Zaxcom are saying that the new QRX200 and QRX235 will work even better then older hardware with the new modulation. WELL THAT IS JUST CRAZY!

P.S. I still can’t believe that we are getting this upgrade for free.  Thanks Zaxcom for giving it away.­­­­

 

 

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Haha, I may be put out of a job (one of my jobs)!

Can I just say, I've been really hoping for our wireless to catch up with newer digital modulation technology. With all of the 802.11 and cell phone technologies out there, it seems kind of unfortunate that it's taken this long to start to utilize it (and I imagine that's what Zaxcom is doing, though I don't really understand how it could be done in a firmware update).

To be clear, such performance doesn't make FreqFinder completely obsolete, intermodulation always raises the noise floor that we have to fight against. But if the wireless performance really is that great, maybe we can afford to be more sloppy about it :P

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Your software is great and I apologies for saying but I stop coordinating when I converted to all digital. I run 6-10 mics on block 25. I don't even automatic scan anymore. Just scroll up and select frequencies randomly. I wish I had more time to test more then 2 frequencies together. I am working with Lectro gear today so no time for more test. And I will be away for the weekend. When I get back on Monday I will try using 7-8 mics at the same time.

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