lectro R1a recieving from my audio ltd 2040?

[martijn scholte]

Hi all

i wonder if i could get a Synthesized UHF Belt-Pack IFB Receiver R1a

(block 32)

to recieve from my audio 2040 tx? (826 to 850MHZ)

i am thinking of booming wireless with a ambient UMP

http://www.ambient.de/produkte/mikrofonspeis/ump/ump_e.html

receiving on both my Audio LTD dx2040 and the Lectro R1a

so the boom opp. hears also what he is booming.

wonder also how bad the quality wil suffer from wireless vs hardwired

(cmc6mk41 mic)

any idea's greatly appreciated!

cheers

martijn

www.good-sound.nl (slow site)

[David Waelder]

Your broad plan to use an Ambient with your microphone and Audio LTD receiver is probably just fine. I don't have personal experience with the 2040 system for boom work but my experience with Lectro and Zaxcom gear leads me to believe you should have very high quality results.

Now, monitoring the audio by receiving it directly with a Lectro R1a receiver may be a problem.

There are several possible areas of incompatibility:

1. According to Lectrosonics, the IFB system works on their proprietary "Digital Hybrid" design. Briefly, the audio is digitized in the transmitter but the data is transmitted as a standard FM signal. When received, the digital data is decoded to analog audio. Clearly the signal from the Audio Ltd. transmitter would not be compatible with that operating design.

2. The Lectro IFB system works with 20kHz of FM deviation. I don't know what the deviation is in the Audio Ltd. but 20kHz is rather narrow for high quality transmission. The deviation is, to some extent, the available real estate of the signal. A wide deviation = more room for information and higher potential quality. A narrow deviation = less room and more restriction. Information on deviation is not available on the Audio Ltd. website but, for comparison, Lectro uses 75kHz for its professional wireless (in 400 series mode) so it seems likely the Audio Ltd. would work with more than 20kHz.

3. The Lectro R1a receiver uses a pilot squelch system to reject any signal not accompanied by that secondary signal. It prevents the receiver from being clogged with spurious RF signals - like those coming from an Audio Ltd. transmitter, I suppose. The Lectro IFB pilot signal is 29.997kHz (different from the pilot signal they use for the regular SM and UM transmitters) and it would be an extraordinary coincidence if Audio Ltd. used a compatible system.

Lectrosonics has gone to some trouble to make its gear backward compatible. Transmitters in the SM and UM series can be configured to send IFB compatible signals to feed R1a receivers. But generally that works by "stepping down" the transmitter, not reconfiguring the receiver. Anyway, I hedge my answer by saying that sometimes the Lectro gear can be made quite agile but I don't know of any normal way the IFB receivers can be adjusted to receive Audio Ltd. signals.

But, if you just add a dedicated transmitter for the R1a, everything can work just fine.

David