New wireless Mic 700 MHz Band Law

[acammcknight]

Can anyone tell me anything about the new Wireless mics law dealing with 700 MHz Band. I know that we are not supposed to use that frequency. One person in our church says this does not apply to churches . What is everyone doing about this issue in your church.

Thanks for everyone's help

David McKnight

[waynehoskins]

Very much applies to churches. And schools. And everybody else under the jurisdiction of the FCC. The only transmissions allowed in that spectrum are those from its new owners like telecoms and public safety, as well as a very few special-class television stations still authorized to broadcast analog TV if I recall correctly.

For my church, the solution was simple. We've had a sufficiently small number of wireless and IEMs, so by luck only one IEM was above 698. We shut it down for good in advance of the deadline.

Some manufacturers have had trade-in rebate deals in recent years to help consumers offset the cost of replacing their soon- or recently-illegal radios. I don't know if any of those offers are still around.

Replacing a small number of wireless systems is relatively inexpensive (you can do it for less than $1K a set). Many of the new systems offer some really nice features at a nice price. I'm partial to Sennheiser; their Evolution G3 wireless in particular now offer power distribution over coax from their G3 antenna splitters and transmitting combiners. They also do on-channel telemetry so you can read the battery level from the receiver. Nice stuff, dirt cheap for the quality and features.