Extend Performance through Wireless

Business as usual is very easy, setup your mixer, laptop, external drive, bose l1 series II or jbl EON515 speakers and you are pretty much a go.

Now when you are trying to reach everyone in a large area (say a football field or park) then things get difficult because the area is too large for the speakers on the main stage and you really don’t want people to go deaf by walking in front of the speakers trying to reach out the furthest reaches of the area.

So some solutions…

Many people use a wireless guitar pack which they run from the mixer to the wireless guitar pack (so your music is acting like the guitar) which sends the signal/music to the receiver which would normally be connected to the mixer to output the sound but in this case the receiver is plugged into to the speaker.

Downfall is you have to have this setup for each of your speakers which can start costing some serious money. Also you have a MAX range of 200′ (if you are lucky to get that), also the guitar packs you have connected to your mixer run on batteries which will last between 6-12 hours (depending on the model you get).

An alternative solution that I use in a low FM-Transmitter. As long as the transmit power is 3w or less then you are good. This covers more then 200′ (not be a whole lot) and the users could be listening to the radio and just tuning into the frequency you select which is not being used by anyone else. I plug a portable/compact radio into the speakers out in the distance via the headphone jack and now I’m amplifying my signal for everyone. This follows what Drive-In theaters use to get the sound to everyone’s car.

You can order a low powered FM Transmitter as a kit that you have to put together but it will only cost you about $300

If you would rather not build an FM Transmitter then it will run you about $1200 for the least expensive and reliable system I can find.

I suppose, stay tuned for the selection that is made but I am still leaning towards the FM Transmitter idea.. it just sounds cool.

So what do I use?

FM Transmitter in a kit called the (Drive-In Kit) which includes everything I need to broadcast the shows at a low power (so I meet the FCC requirements).

My first use of this was June 12th-13th at Civic Center Park in Madison Heights, Michigan at the Relay for Life Charity Event and it worked great.