With is wireless microphone system at plagued by dropouts and RF interference, the Cathedral of St Joseph, the seat of the Archdiocese of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut, recently upgraded its sound system and FOH console.
‘The Archbishop himself would comment on the fact that he found it difficult if not impossible to get through a sermon without a dropout or interference noise,’ observed Don Gamsjager, founder and CEO of DNR Labs, who stepped to rectify the problem. ‘Fortunately, we had RF Venue.’
Gamsjager says the existing RF distribution system, installed around 20 years ago, was woefully inadequate and overly complicated, with more than 30 components, including eight paddle antennas scattered throughout the venue. ‘The church measures 400ft from end to end, and also hold of services just outside the main entrance, so there was a lot of space to cover,’ he says.
Built in 1962 in the international interpretation of the classic cruciform Gothic style, the cathedral is the largest between those in New York and Boston, and seats more than 1,750 in a sanctuary characterised by spectacular stained-glass windows. Gamsjager conferred with RF Venue Sales Director Adam Brass and the RF Venue engineering team and came up with a simple and elegant RF solution.
DNR Labs installed two Diversity Fin Antennas, two passive inline Band-Pass Filters, two active In-Line Amplifiers, a 4Zone antenna combiner, and a Distro4 antenna distribution system, all from RF Venue’s line of essential wireless audio accessories that work with any brand and any model of wireless microphone and IEM system. The antennae are able to completely cover the church’s interior and part of its exterior worship spaces (one Diversity Fin antenna was installed outdoors in a weatherproof enclosure) completely without dropouts. In the process, says Gamsjager, they were also able to eliminate old unneeded long coaxial cable runs, with distance defied for the new antenna runs by the active In-Line Amplifiers, designed to compensate for RF antenna signal loss on lengthy coax runs. The band-pass filters are tuned to 470-530MHz, and are termed lifesavers by Gamsjager in dense urban RF environments like Hartford. The signals captured by the cross-polarised design of two Diversity Fin Antennas, which offer true diversity reception in a single package, are combined in the 4Zone, and then distributed to the wireless microphone antenna inputs by the Distro4, which also provides power to the receivers.
Along with the Sennheiser EW-DX wireless microphone system that DNR Labs also installed, the church is now completely dropout-free. ‘We replaced an enormous amount of equipment with a truly minimal amount of gear and got perfect performance,’ Gamsjager says. ‘The cathedral’s A1, Dave Raymond, says it’s the first time the church has ever experienced a completely dropout-free service. They’re able to take the wireless mics to any location in the church and have a perfect experience with it.’
Perhaps the highest accolade came from Archbishop Leonard Paul Blair after his first sermon following the installation: ‘I now have complete confidence in this microphone’.
‘You can’t ask for higher praise than that,’ Gamsjager says.
More: www.rfvenue.com
