Antennas on IEM and Guitar Wireless

TD77

TD77

Inspired
I’m in process of building out a 6U rack around my axefx3. I want to add an IEM and guitar wireless to fill 1U of space. I like the Sennheiser units but not sure how to handle the antenna situation. Wonder why they don’t put these on the front. But anyhow…

Since the antennas are on the back, I don’t know if that’s going to cause any issues being in a rack case. I have no idea if I’ll have the room to adjust them properly.

I believe I can route the antennas to the front. The rack brackets look like they have holes for this. But it seems only ONE hole per side. This is a problem if the receivers have two antennas.

Anyone run these units in a rack with the antennas in the back? Do you have any issues with signal loss? I know this is relative to the situation but just wondering overall if it’s problematic. I know theee are plates that allow you to bring two antennas to the front but I would need 2U of space to do this for both units. I didn’t account for this with the case I got. I wanted to keep it to 6 and intended to run the transmitters side by side. But alas now I have this antenna thing to deal with. Lol. Thanks.
 
On old Skb racks there's enough exposed aluminum to drill holes to mount your antennas. See if your rack has the clearance and you can mount the antenna where you'd like.
 
warlockII said:
On old Skb racks there's enough exposed aluminum to drill holes to mount your antennas. See if your rack has the clearance and you can mount the antenna where you'd like.
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I have a gator case but….I didn’t even think of that. Lol. I’m sure I could modify in some way if need be. If I decide upon units that have one antenna then I’ll be fine with the rack panels (they have single holes). But for receivers with dual antennas that’s a problem. Appreciate the input. It gives me a potential solution.
 
The rack ear holes are blocked by the rack rails. I had to cut space in a rack rail to mount the IEM antenna on the rail side. I have no idea why they designed the transmitter so large and further why their rack ear has a hole at all when it won’t work without cutting the rail.

I still prefer the G4 IEM vs the Shure equivalent (which DOES allow a front rail mount and comes with the cables needed). But it’s more expensive to mount the Sennheiser than the Shure.

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Here’s a pic of my 4 space shallow setup. Older style SKB. You can see the IEM on the left with the front mount antenna - yes I cut a hole in the rack rail to make it fit.

I’m using the EW-D for a microphone. I keep the 2 antenna in the back and it works fine at least out to 50 feet.

When I had both antenna in the back, I had interference problems which makes sense since one is sending and the other is receiving. Before I cut the hole, I just fed the IEM antenna to sit on top of the rack case, which worked and separated the sets of antenna, but mounting is definitely better.

Transmitters and receivers aren’t supposed to be racked side by side, but this works for me. As long as the antenna are separated it’s been fine.

I’ll try to take a pic of my 6 space setup later. Similar concept, but I use the 1/2 rack antenna plate for the IEM since I didn’t cut that rack rail yet.
 
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chris said:
The rack ear holes are blocked by the rack rails. I had to cut space in a rack rail to mount the IEM antenna on the rail side. I have no idea why they designed the transmitter so large and further why their rack ear has a hole at all when it won’t work without cutting the rail.

I still prefer the G4 IEM vs the Shure equivalent (which DOES allow a front rail mount and comes with the cables needed). But it’s more expensive to mount the Sennheiser than the Shure.

View attachment 124329

Here’s a pic of my 4 space shallow setup. Older style SKB. You can see the IEM on the left with the front mount antenna - yes I cut a hole in the rack rail to make it fit.

I’m using the EW-D for a microphone. I keep the 2 antenna in the back and it works fine at least out to 50 feet.

When I had both antenna in the back, I had interference problems which makes sense since one is sending and the other is receiving. Before I cut the hole, I just fed the IEM antenna to sit on top of the rack case, which worked and separated the sets of antenna, but mounting is definitely better.

Transmitters and receivers aren’t supposed to be racked side by side, but this works for me. As long as the antenna are separated it’s been fine.

I’ll try to take a pic of my 6 space setup later. Similar concept, but I use the 1/2 rack antenna plate for the IEM since I didn’t cut that rack rail yet.
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Thanks Chris. Good point about the units not meant to be side by side. Didn’t think of that. For economy of space I tried to keep to a 6U and just figured I could put both the IEM and guitar wireless in a 1U space. Didn’t realize the antenna issues. I guess I could just run the guitar wireless inside the rack with a side antenna plate and keep the iem out altogether. Just wanted a self contained unit for easy transport and setup.
 
TD77 said:
Thanks Chris. Good point about the units not meant to be side by side. Didn’t think of that. For economy of space I tried to keep to a 6U and just figured I could put both the IEM and guitar wireless in a 1U space. Didn’t realize the antenna issues. I guess I could just run the guitar wireless inside the rack with a side antenna plate and keep the iem out altogether. Just wanted a self contained unit for easy transport and setup.
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i have them side by side without major issues.
 
Hmm. I may be able to use the patch bay panel itself. There are two extra spaces. Could run two antennas to those in the front and then the other antenna could be on one of the half rack front brackets. Patch bay should be here in a few days. Will take a look.
 
Those antennas are omni directional (pull 360 degrees around it), they need to be straight up and down or slightly tilted away from each (for diversity) antennas. You would be severely hampering the pickup on the antenna if its' sticking straight out the back stuck in a rack.
 
dpeterson said:
Those antennas are omni directional (pull 360 degrees around it), they need to be straight up and down or slightly tilted away from each (for diversity) antennas. You would be severely hampering the pickup on the antenna if its' sticking straight out the back stuck in a rack.
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Definitely. That’s why I’m trying to figure out an alternate solution and asking here. Patch bay extra openings may work and will see.
 
TD77 said:
Definitely. That’s why I’m trying to figure out an alternate solution and asking here. Patch bay extra openings may work and will see.
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Just make sure your iem and instrument antennas are as far apart as possible, otherwise there is all kinds of intermodulation that can happen. We just installed an antenna combiner with a paddle for our iems, so we get those away from the instrument wireless' and helps with dropouts on the iems from them being too close together.
 
We run 4 Wireless Sennheiser IEM's in 1 SKB rack with the antennas mounted to the rear of the units + 1 hard-wired IEM. We've never had an issue with drop-outs but we typically don't roam more than 50 feet from the rack. Every once in a while someone will have to adjust their freq due to some outside interference but that's about it.
 
Sully0556 said:
We run 4 Wireless Sennheiser IEM's in 1 SKB rack with the antennas mounted to the rear of the units + 1 hard-wired IEM. We've never had an issue with drop-outs but we typically don't roam more than 50 feet from the rack. Every once in a while someone will have to adjust their freq due to some outside interference but that's about it.
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Thanks. Most likely it will be the IEM antenna on far left and the guitar antennas far right in the same 1U space. I wish I considered this BEFORE I bought the rack. Lol. But then again I didn’t want to go bigger than a 6U so is what it is at this point. Guitar wireless is not a much have as much as a nice to have. The IEM is priority. Appreciate the feedback immensely! 🤟🏻
 
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