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RF Venue 2.4 GHz CP Beam for Zaxnet


Max Dumesnil

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Unless you have a very particular situation, I have absolutely no idea why you would use a CP Beam as a transmitter zaxnet antenna. You'd have your directors and producers immediately behind you asking why their feeds are dropping out ha, but seriously I use a 1watt amplifier going to a omni direction antenna. Boosts the power and range significantly. With the exception of bleed on my analog inputs...but this has all been talked about quite a bit you can do some searching for more specifics. Good luck mate!

In my situation Zaxnet is only for my Boom op, the scratch track and Tx control. The rest is on a different system (Comtek). This is why i'm looking into a more directional solution mostly for exteriors.

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I've played with it a bit and have just loaned it out for field testing. Preliminary testing shows a good range increase outdoors and less/spotty coverage indoors. I plan on a giving a comprehensive test in the next week or so. I should have some more info on the field test in the next couple of days.

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I got a loaner from them to check out recently. I got around 400-450ft range with a zaxCL on power 5, listening with an ERX2. No inline amp, just an extension cable to the CP Beam which was up on a mast about 9ft. It's nice and small too. I plan on picking one up.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

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I got a loaner from them to check out recently. I got around 400-450ft range with a zaxCL on power 5, listening with an ERX2. No inline amp, just an extension cable to the CP Beam which was up on a mast about 9ft. It's nice and small too. I plan on picking one up.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

What kind of extension cable?

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Outside my house in metro Phoenix. Haven't had the opportunity to use in field yet, but was impressed with the range from both the diversity fin and CP beam during the short period I had to play. For the CP 2.4 They sent a 2ft adapter sma to BNC cable, and a longer (25ft)low loss BNC cable.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

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Outside my house in metro Phoenix. Haven't had the opportunity to use in field yet, but was impressed with the range from both the diversity fin and CP beam during the short period I had to play. For the CP 2.4 They sent a 2ft adapter sma to BNC cable, and a longer (25ft)low loss BNC cable.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

is the model brand printed on the cable?

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Did you test it enough to see how focused the beam effectively is? It looks very very directional in those graphs.

No, ran out of time.  It is very directional as the graphs say, and by design, I believe similar to helical.  

 

is the model brand printed on the cable?

it is.  rfvenue.com low loss 50 ohm.  RG8X.  Ham radio wire in some circles.  These guys make quality wire in addition to rfvenue 

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I've had a week with the unit and my first impressions are good. I'm using a Nomad 10 with Zaxnet TX power at 7 and testing with ERX2TCD and TRX992 IFB. Running straight off the Nomad's SMA up a mast to the BNC input on the antenna using a simple 10ft SMA -> BNC cable from Trew, no in-line amplification.

 

Line of sight outside, I was able to get around 600ft with the fins facing the ERX and around 50ft with someone standing opposite the fins. I was worried that I would have to switch to my dipole in situations where I had to be set up in front or to the side of video village, but I was pleasantly surprised that I was covered by a 'spill' of Zaxnet that blanketed 40-50ft sphere on X, Y, and -Z axis.

 

There was a scene with camera on a wide lens, on the balcony directly above me, shooting down the nave of a chapel and there was enough reach to go through the floor to send scratch track and TC. I was running a camera return via an SDI hard line from village's monitor with a TC overlay. Everything worked just fine.

 

Aside from performance, the biggest pluses are the form factor and weight. It weighs about 3lbs, with most of the weight being a milled aluminum block. It has three most common mic mounting threads so you have a wide variety of ways to integrate it into your set up without having to buy step up or step down adapters.

 

I have pictures and video of some of the tests that I may post at a later date, but this one's looking like a good buy for any Zaxnet cart.

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How is the performance  going through walls. My LCom 1W amp and corner antenna really work very well going through buildings.

 

I haven't had any issues with going through walls so far. One set up I was in the middle of a house going through 3 walls out to video village on the front lawn and no drops.

 

Yesterday was in the downstairs of a church sending Zaxnet to my boom op and ERX camera hop to an upstairs room through plaster and cement walls, also no drops.

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Did you test it enough to see how focused the beam effectively is? It looks very very directional in those graphs.

From Chris at RF Venue:

"Beamwidth is ~65 degrees for the 2.4 GHz CP Beam.  

It’s intentionally designed to have a focused, directional pattern in front of it and is not going to behave like an omni."

I'm going to do some more testing tomorrow on set.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

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  • 5 weeks later...

I got to demo the 2.4 CP and I found there is an increase range vs the standard Zaxcom supplied duckie's - it wont give you the range of a 1 W corner reflector with amp - but it also requires no power and can be used in a bag. 

In several walk tests I have found a boost in line of sight reception. I found I got as little as 30 feet and a max of about 100 feet. But every test I did i saw an increase in range. Even though the signal carries the extra distance there is still the possibilities for hits and dropouts. But every time when the signal using the Zaxcom antenna was lost the RF venue will be rock solid.

Around corners and through walls there is a small increase in signal strength but not enough to make a huge difference.

Off axis (rear) signal is very good – which is much better than I anticipated. I found that the range would be comparable to just using a rubber duckie – which exceeded my expectations. I thought off axis would be unusable – but it is not.

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How big is it, Jack? 

That is a rather personal question.

 

But seriously it is about 8 inches long and about 6 inches high at its widest part and it weighs way less than a pound.

I wouldn't say I would permanently mount this in a bag but it can very easily be used in one when you need a bit of a boost in ZaxNet range - I will take a photo of it with my bag later when I get a chance.

While I haven't done it I can also see someone mounting it on the top of their harness - because it weighs next to nothing.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAh8wG3zcFU

 

The above video shows that Zaxnet now has the strength to punch through a couple walls when you add this to the cart.

 

The script supervisor was really happy with the range of ERXs overall. The director said it was the best sounding 'Comtek' he's ever heard. They were impressed and so was I.

 

The only dropouts I had were on a bridge surrounded by iron trusses and the first shot of the show when I was still on the Nomad dipole and the director was in the next room.

 

I did a walk test with my boom op and you can see the off axis range in this photo, giving you a nice pocket for folks close behind and to the side of your cart. He's probably 50 feet directly behind me.

 

post-3250-0-45474900-1402175461_thumb.jp

 

When facing the fin, you get much, much more. You can barely see him sticking up out from behind a garbage can here.

 

post-3250-0-41396400-1402175542_thumb.jp

 

I just used an old boom pole mounted to my cart to get it up and out over the bag and it did really well.

 

post-3250-0-25660100-1402175596_thumb.jp

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