I live in Orlando and it’s safe to say that there are quite a few theme parks in the area. I happened to be working in one of those today and we were using 10 different wireless microphones. Some of these happened to be on the ill-fated 700 MHz band. From all that I have been told, the 700 MHz mics “should” be operational for quite some time but it would still be illegal to operate them after June 12, 2010. They will continue to work, but you would be technically breaking the law.

Illegal? Say What?

Actually, it would be quite difficult to pin-point someone using an “illegal” microphone. You would have to be within 100 yards of the exact spot that someone was searching for rogue 700 MHz broadcasts. If the FCC has this much time on their hands, I would be super pissed. ( . . . and then I would be applying for the world’s easiest job at the FCC.)  Of course, the real reason that this is such a problem is that you could cause interference with local police or fire fighters during a crisis. Then you would have some serious issues to deal with – if you turned yourself in, that is. Again, the whole pin-pointing issue would still be a problem for the police, fire department or the FCC if you simply ran away.

All this time, I have been looking at this problem from the wrong point of view. I shouldn’t be worried about getting fined or arrested – I should be worried about getting clean audio.

Back to My Story

We had 10 wireless microphones powered up at a theme park.  Two of those mics were in the 700 MHz range and those two mics gave us nothing but trouble – all. day. long. One was acting like a Geiger counter on just about every frequency we moved it to and the other was just dropping out constantly.

After a series of frequency scans we noticed that almost every bit of the spectrum was active. Then it hit us. Could it be that we were interfering with the theme park’s internal park safety, fire, rescue or perhaps wi-fi? I didn’t think that this could happen so soon, but perhaps this really is going to be a problem. Normally, I would think that it was just interference from other wireless mics, but the entire frequency block was being used – I had never seen that before.

So What Do We Do?

Now, I don’t claim to be a wireless expert. I am definitely not. However, I do this stuff for a living and today was my first experience with 700 MHz trouble. Some people say don’t worry about the frequency, it will never give you troubles. Some say get rid of your mics, you will get fined or end up in jail.  Personally, I don’t think that you would ever get arrested for using your 700 MHz microphones – fined perhaps, but nothing more. However,  there’s a good chance that you will have interference – and it’s only going to get worse as time goes on.

So I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it’s probably time to start checking with your microphone manufacturers to see what deals they have on trade-ins. Or you could roll the dice and hope that your frequency is clean. If you decide to go with the latter – be sure to grab an XLR cable and a hard-wire microphone . . . you can thank me later.

If you’re an audio professional and you have some experience in this area or if this same situation has happened to you please let me know what you think about this.  I would love to hear from you.

Further Reading:

• The Federal Communications Commission
• Gigaom – 700 MHz explained in 10 easy steps
• Ars Technica – FCC wants wireless mic ban at 700MHz to boost broadband
• Pro Sound News – What to Do with 700 MHz Wireless Systems

Photo: quinn.anya