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Rolling Your Own Wireless Communications System?

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-in-touch dept.

nuggetman asks: "My high school, like most others, has a theater program. One critical element of the show is the tech crew - the group of people behind the scenes who keep it all running. Communication between the stage manager (myself) and crew members (as well as between crew members) is critical. For this job right now, we're using standard hand-held walkie-talkies. They get the job done, but they're susceptible to dead batteries, incompatibility between VOX headsets, and interference from janitors, the office, hall monitors, and even the local McDonald's. We've been wanting to invest in a theater-communication system, but they can run extremely expensive. Is there any hardware out there that could use a standard PC (Linux or Windows) and some wireless headsets to roll your own communication system that could cover a long enough range (say the theater which is the size of a gym plus a decent range outside it) at a low enough cost? Our school just installed 802.11b/g throughout the hallways, so we could tap into that if necessary and add our own router near the stage if we had to."

3 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Back when I was doing this at school by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... which was admittedly about 18 years ago, we were happy to have the very latest technology... microphones and headphones (well, it was on a school-sized budget :-)

    To be honest, I'd be surprised if WiFi would help you very much - it'd have to be a VoIP network, which isn't an obvious use of WiFi (the range is too short - most people would simply shout!)

    Bluetooth might be an option, but they're basically clever walkie-talkies. Buy some rechargeable batteries and carry them. Sometimes the "clever" solution is the low-tech one...

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  2. ClearCom? by Arcady13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just buy a few ClearCom headsets. If wireless costs too much for you, get the old-style models and some lengths of XLR cable. Why waste time with all this computer stuff? It just complicates things. Use the simplest solution.

  3. Better Yet. by dracocat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't buy anything. Work on sharing the football team's headsets. They probably have a bigger budget than your theatre department anyways. This should work out as long as you never have a performance during a game, which you should never do anyways!!

    If they don't have one, perhaps its a good time to talk about splitting the cost of one.