Some of our competitors have been making a lot of noise about the level of real-time, personal support they offer. Here at Shure, an announcement like that wouldn’t be news or advertising copy. We’ve been offering one-on-one customer service since 1933.

Sidney N. Shure, the company’s founder, built this strong foundation. According to Michael Pettersen, who directs the Applications Engineering Group at Shure, "His philosophy was that you do good for society. You don’t lie to customers…ever. And building long-term trust is more important than getting the sale."

It wasn’t exactly surprising to find that Rick Waller, a member of Shure’s crack Applications Engineering Group, is also a musician. After all, of the seven or so Apps pros who’ve done their star turns as the Answer Man (or Woman) of the Month, only two would more likely be found in the audience than on stage. But with a passion for fast, exotic cars and racecar driving, we felt fortunate to slow him down long enough to answer a few questions.

Not many first jobs out of college last fifteen years.
That’s true. Shure recruits from several universities, so when they came down to the University of Illinois, I interviewed with them and was offered a position in the Applications Engineering Department. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, specializing in RF and DSP.

So is that your area of expertise here?
Right, I tend to focus on wireless systems and DSP.

In this issue of Shure Notes for Houses of Worship, we’re talking about personal monitoring systems. Since you’re communicating with end users every day, are there a couple of questions you’ve gotten recently that might benefit our readers?
Sure. The first question is whether it is possible to use multiple bodypack receivers with one transmitter. Most people are accustomed to the wireless microphone scenario in that only one bodypack can be used with each base station. However, with PSM systems, the transmitter and receiver are reversed. That is, the bodypack now becomes the receiver. With PSM systems, it is possible to have as many receivers as needed, listening to the same transmitter. It is just like 1000 cars listening to the same radio station.

The second question/issue has to do with RF gain. A big myth with wireless systems, and especially PSM systems, is that it is better to use high gain directional antennas along with as much RF amplification as possible.

The truth is, this can result in RF overloading in the front end of the bodypack receiver, causing dropouts or other artifacts and make the performance worse.

As an analogy, musicians and sound engineers are quite familiar with overload (clip) in audio. When an audio signal is too loud and overloads or clips the mixer, the audio becomes distorted and sounds terrible.

In the RF world, when the RF signal overloads the receiver, dropouts or other artifacts can occur. At some concerts, when this has occurred, I have pointed the directional antenna 90 degrees or 180 degrees away from the stage. By decreasing the amount of RF energy that is focused on the stage, the performance of the PSM system can be increased.

As with most things in life, more is not always better. The appropriate amount of RF energy needs to be sent to the PSM receiver. Many times, better performance can be achieved by removing the high gain directional antenna and instead using the small whip antenna that came with the PSM system. The high-gain directional antennas are over used. These types of antennas are usually not needed when the distance between the receiver and transmitter is less than 100 feet.



Have a question? Need to connect with the Shure Applications Engineering Group? Call them at 847 600 8440, e-mail or visit the FAQ section of the Shure website.