wireless guitar systems

[Leo_Gnardo]

I put in a few decades in corporate work and never saw teams in various industries operate in this idealized manner. Far from it. And I have friends who've worked at CEO level who tell me the same. Not directly relevant - but you and I have VERY different ideas of how big business operates.

Could be, the MI manufacturers are microscopic compared to big biz. A Fender or Peavey or Sam Ash or Sennheiser, look like pepper specks compared to GM, Hewlett-Packard, Microshaft etc.

How many people did it take to develop the Stratocaster, compared to the Corvette? Like that. 3 or 4 or so, vs. hundreds. Still that way. Also consider, employees of big biz can take off hours a day to fart around on their computers & plastic pocket pals, while they can ill afford to do the same at small companies. IBM is the big bear here, customers who are employees have tales of themselves & others spending most of their day at work trading stocks, watching sports, generally goofing off. One of my competitors regularly took off 4 days a week to concentrate on his own biz, received full paycheck plus benefits & pension. How's a guy who works for himself supposed to compete with that? Any biz smaller than IBM would have kicked him out after 1 week of this behavior. I asked him, he said "company policy is they encourage employees to have their own side businesses." Bad enough, the inefficiency to IBM, but with this policy they suppress local business that's not owned by IBM employees.

[Richard S]

Samson seems to offer one type of replacment antenna. Are they universal?

[52 Bill]

Samson seems to offer one type of replacement antenna. Are they universal?

I used to use one of these back in the days when I still played out. They worked fine for the time, but the new ones are probably better as far as range, interference and frequency response.

I think that I still have mine buried somewhere in storage. I'll try and dig it out and post the specs for the antenna for you.

[Enzo]

One SHOULD have the proper length antenna, however, a few inches of wire will be WAY better than no antenna. Just as your TV needed a specific dimension antenna, yet many people watched it on a coathanger with aluminum foil. There is optimum, and then there is what works well enough for rock and roll. In the absence of the real, official part, anything that fits will probably work well enough.

[Richard S]

Is replacing the missing antenna worth it? How well does your TV work without an antenna? Or take the antenna off your car radio. Of course you need the antenna.

The antenna is a specific length, which has to do with wavelengths of the RF signal. But beyond that, no antenna means weak reception, and that would translate into more drop outs, noisier reception, shorter range.

A typical wireless has a reliable range of up to maybe 300 feet, which in most venues is a long way. Most guys only need to get from the guitar to the amp, so what, maybe 20 feet?

More advanced systems use "diversity" reception. Two antennas, spaced a quarter wave apart, two receivers inside. The system receives the transmitted signal on both receiver circuits, and uses whichever one is stronger. usually it sits on one, but if you move around a lot, sometimes reflected radio waves can cause brief signal drops, so the second receiver is at a different RF phase relation and so when one drops out the other is strong. You never hear it switching back and forth.

A single antenna system lacks diversity, but in almost every situation, placement of the receiver solves any problem. Where this mainly causes issues is wireless mics with the receiver back at the mix station some distance away.

Thank you all very much.

[52 Bill]

In case you want to know, the antenna is 39 inches long when fully extended. The bottom section is 9mm in diameter and has a 3mm threaded stud that is 5mm long that threads into the circuit board through the top of the case. The antenna has 9 sections.

Surprisingly, according to the price sticker I paid $249.00 for this thing.