Hi all:
WIth all of the excitement over the elections today, I doubt if many noticed another monumental decision was made that will affect many of us. The FCC, over the protests and complaints of our industry, voted 5-0 today to license unused spectrum for future wireless devices.
"A coalition of powerful groups, including broadcasters, Broadway theater producers and sports franchises, hoped to derail or delay the decision. They have argued that their own transmissions — whether from television signals or from wireless microphones used in live music performances — could face interference from new devices that use the white spaces."
I just researched and wrote an article on this subject that will appear in the February 2009 issue of HD Video Equipment - HD Video Tips - HD Video Technique | HDVideoPro.com magazine. What it boils down to is that as users of wireless microphone systems, all of us will be affected by this and the immediate future of how usable our wireless mic systems will be is in question. The beacon testing that was conducted to see if the "white space" wireless internet devices could recognize already used spectrum by wireless microphone users was an inconclusive failure.
I have spoken with representatives from Lectrosonics, Sennheiser and Shure and all I can tell you is that we will face challenges and most of us will experience interference and at times, our wireless systems will be useless in certain times and locations. All of the manufacturers have various game plans and technology they are developing to circumvent these issues ranging from new 944Mhz systems to 2.4Ghz technology and some other solutions but the bottom line is that we have officially just become unlicensed competitors for our own air space and we are in competition for the use of that air space with companies that have a little power and political clout including the best lawyers that money can buy. Who has been unceasingly petitioning the FCC for this airspace? Why our friends at Google and Microsoft amongst others. There are tens of billions of dollars worth potential business involved here and frankly, our industry groups like NAB and the Broadway theater owners cannot compete as far as having the ear of the FCC.
Today, nobody can state exactly how this will affect each of us, but we can say that this decision is very significant and may grow to the level of monumental in the next year or two.
Read about it.
http://tinyurl.com/6emnhh Nobody has the answers yet but we all have a lot of questions.
NEW FCC Ruling will interfre with your wireless
. If my UHF system becomes totally useless, I'll get a cheapo VHF system...doesn't matter as I've quit using the wireless track for final source audio over a year ago.... 
. If my UHF system becomes totally useless, I'll get a cheapo VHF system...doesn't matter as I've quit using the wireless track for final source audio over a year ago....