RF spectrum management is big part of AV integrator HouseRight’s implementation of wireless microphone and IEM systems for its clients. HouseRight has long deployed spectrum analysis hardware distributed by RF Venue to reveal the available clean spectrum in a church’s RF environment – the RF Explorer handheld touchscreen spectrum analyzer designed to aid the optimization of wireless audio systems and the second-generation RF Explorer Pro which adds advanced capabilities including WiFi analysis.
“We have several RF Explorers,” says James McMullan, design manager for the integrator. “I have just upgraded to the RF Explorer Pro; I certainly love the products.” Based on their experience with RF Venue’s line of wireless audio essentials and distributed RF management tools, HouseRight was eager to test out the new Spectrum Recorder, a compact and self-contained portable RF spectrum scanner that provides easy capture, storage and retrieval of RF spectrum data.
The first use was for a church having wireless audio issues in a crowded RF environment. The Spectrum Recorder, with its constant collection of spectrum data “was certainly the most effective tool that could be deployed over a given amount of time,” says McMullan. “We were trying to understand the activity of the church and its campus throughout the week, whether the interference was an issue only on Sunday morning, something that's happening all the time or intermittent.”
Spectrum Recorder is designed to continuously capture RF activity, saving the data in its internal storage as time-stamped CSV files, which can be retrieved directly via USB drive or accessed remotely over an IP network via the recorder’s POE network port. HouseRight most typically deploys Shure and Sennheiser wireless systems, and Spectrum Recorder’s data files are natively compatible with software like Shure’s Wireless Workbench, Sennheiser’s Wireless System Manager, Audio-Technica’s Wireless Manager, the RF Explorer Pro analyzer and RF Venue’s free web-based Wireless System Builder tool for system design and frequency coordination worldwide.
With the Spectrum Recorder, McMullen says there was no longer an issue of the church staff having the technical ability and time availability to commit to scanning throughout a weekend, nor was it necessary to send a HouseRight technician out to perform the monitoring. The Spectrum Recorder is placed in the facility and turned on, and it automatically begins capturing spectrum data. “It has made it easy for the customer to continue doing what they're doing,” says McMullan. “It’s an all-in-one solution to let us say, ‘Let’s not have to think about it until we can capture data.’ We can just drop ship it in the mail.”
A church deploying the Spectrum Recorder can set it up in an unobtrusive location within the RF environment with a minimum of guidance from the integrator. “For a smaller application we’ll just use the provided whip antenna, which makes it essentially drag and drop,” says McMullan. In a more sophisticated deployment, where the church has knowledgeable staff and an RF distribution system, Spectrum Recorder can be connected to their RF distribution for an even more refined view of what their remote antennas are seeing.
“We go learn what happens on an average week at a site before we go install equipment,” says McMullan, “so that when we are deploying resources, we have historical data that says ‘This is exactly what’s going on in this site on these days,’ which ends up saving us a lot of time and energy onsite.” Broadcast television, neighboring churches also operating wireless audio systems and the new uses of cellular and internet delivery in the relevant spectrum are among the sources of interference that Spectrum Recorder helps identify. “The most expensive component of our projects onsite is our travel,” says McMullan. “We’re spending a lot of resources and time on our pre-build process where we try to configure the equipment as much as we can here in the warehouse, before it actually ships.” Capturing long term spectrum data onsite without the personnel and time commitments traditionally necessary, he says, makes Spectrum Recorder, “a great tool that's going to identify the exact challenges.”
Since it began in 2013 in Lexington, Kentucky, HouseRight has grown to having over 50 employees based in nine U.S. states to serve houses of worship across the country. HouseRight relies on wireless audio essentials from RF Venue to eliminate wireless issues – antennas, RF distribution, IEM transmitter combiners – says McMullan. “I have been an RF Venue user in the house-of-worship market, at my church, then also here at HouseRight. We use a lot of RF Venue gear just for the performance.”
