The New England chapter of First Robotics, branded as “The Ultimate Sport For The Mind” in staging nationally organized high school robotics competitions, recently upgraded the performance of the wireless systems utilized at its events with an RF Venue 4 channel wireless microphone upgrade pack.
“When we were competing up in Maine, for instance, no problems at all – the frequency spectrum was wide open and clear,” says Jx2 Productions’ Justin Holmes, who provides AV equipment, engineering and support as well as serving in NE First Robotics district leadership. “But when we went to field competitions in places like Boston and Hartford, it became much harder to find available frequencies for the wireless mics. Very often we’d also find ourselves competing with the schools’ own wireless systems for frequency space, and a lot would also depend on the orientation of the building and how much RF obstruction there was. What would happen is there would be 20 judges on the floor during a closing ceremony, and the emcee’s microphone would be cutting in and out while he was reading the winners’ names.”
The RF Venue upgrade pack combines a DISTRO4 antenna distribution system, a Diversity Finn antenna and all needed cabling to connect and power four wireless microphone receivers of any brand or model. The package has helped solve the wireless issues for experienced by NE First Robotics.
The high-gain, directional Diversity Fin is designed to reduce dropouts and interference by using one element that captures vertically polarized waves and another that captures horizontally polarized waves. to improve diversity system performance regardless of how the wireless transmitter is positioned. The DISTRO4 system splits the signals from the Diversity Fin and buffers its four diversity outputs for delivery to multiple co-located receivers. Also included in the bundle are eight coaxial RF cables and four DC power jumpers for interconnection.
“Since we began using the RF Venue package a few months ago, the dropouts have completely stopped,” Holmes says. “The audio quality is excellent and consistent. The D-Fin antenna filters out the frequencies we don’t need and lets us have a clear path on the ones we do. RF Venue made a huge difference and solved the problem.”
