Use of new spectrum may be hindered by unlicensed wireless microphones

[musicman]

Consumer groups allege that, after the nation's conversion to digital broadcasting in February, some wireless microphones will threaten emergency communications and interfere with commercial wireless carriers, which spent $19 billion to use the same airwaves as the microphones.

The story from the Associated Press by way of The (Rock Hill) Herald:

http://www.heraldonline.com/115/story/687697.html

 

[gcgrotz]

Wow, that could be a problem. A big old fat FM carrier in the middle of your low power broadband digital signal.

Requiring the manufacturers to replace all the old ones? I think some would just go out of business at that prospect. How about Verizon and AT&T paying for it? They're the ones that laid out Billion$ for the spectrum. The microphones have been there at least 25-30 years.

 

[mikey60]

Most of these wireless microphones that are on these frequencies are pretty low powered, and would probably be more likely to experience the interference than the public safety radios. Any sound operator worth anything would know this is coming, and have a plan in place to resolve it anyway.

Mike