Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday August 13 2018, @12:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the project-your-voice dept.

The email blast from the head of my son and daughter's theater group relayed a frantic plea: "We need to raise $16,000 before the upcoming spring performances," Anya Wallach, the executive director of Random Farms Kids' Theater, in Westchester, New York, wrote in late May. If the money didn't materialize in time, she warned, there could be a serious problem with the shows: nobody would hear the actors.

Random Farms, and tens of thousands of other theater companies, schools, churches, broadcasters, and myriad other interests across the country, need to buy new wireless microphones. The majority of professional wireless audio gear in America is about to become obsolete, and illegal to operate. The story of how we got to this strange point involves politics, business, science, and, of course, money.

Story: https://www.wired.com/story/wireless-mics-radio-frequencies-fcc-saga/


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 13 2018, @02:12PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday August 13 2018, @02:12PM (#720983) Journal

    The kind of district that drops $40K on wireless mics likely has a $1M football field and has at least one $100K/yr administrator employees for every $30K/yr front line teacher (I live in such a district).

    You're assuming the "district dropped $40K" on those mics. A lot of high school theater productions do not get anywhere near the kind of support from "the district" compared to sports.

    In the high school I went to, for example, the drama club basically had to fund itself through ticket sales. There was some tiny annual budget from the school that basically was enough to pay a few extra bucks to the teacher who directed and a part-time assistant. Production money from the district was non-existent. Equipment money had to be begged for and usually didn't come.

    Meanwhile, expensive improvements to sports facilities happened regularly.

    Maybe a district did drop $40K for these mics. Or maybe (as in my school) they only had wireless mics at all because a few big donors chipped in one year and a parent happened to know a guy who worked at an audio equipment store so could get a deal that the drama club could afford. Whether someone would be able to get a deal and convince donors again is an open question.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:12PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:12PM (#721334)

    I would tentatively agree with most of that although don't forget upkeep. Your average high school kid is only slightly less destructive than an Army GI, so they either drop a could K every year on replacement gear or the $40K system will be useless in maybe a decade due to normal breakage or they have an expensive service contract. You can buy fresh paint for a classroom and not mess with it for a decade, maybe, but not delicate electronics.

    Its sort of like "giving" someone a BMW, if they can't afford the upfront cost of the car the maint cost is out of this world so one way or another in a couple years they aren't going to have a BMW.