Rolling Your Own Wireless Communications System?

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."

Comments

Every problem looking like a nail.

[normal_guy]

Sounds like a battery-management issue more than something requiring a complex software solution.

Better question...digitial microphones?

[JoeShmoe]

I work with a lot of presentations and lectures and I'm dying to know if there is any consumer or prosumer level digital microphone systems out there? Everything that you can find both at cheap ass Radio Shack and even high end audio stores is varying degrees of wireless. 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz just like cordless phones. Some through the word "digital" around but are still susceptible to interference and static.

What I'm dreaming of is something that is purely digital, from the device the speaker wears all the way to the speaker. I envision something like a Bluetooth wireless microphone similar to the bluetooth headsets that some cellular phones use. This bluetooth microphone would relay to either a box in the speaker's pocket or inside the lecturn. This box would then use CAT-5 or 802.11 to transmit the stream as a WAV or MP3 so that it could be played on a SlimMP3 or Shuttle connected directly to the speaker system. In theory the speaker could roam freely and speak clearly and sound crystal clear.

Is there anythign like this? One place that I work for is about 100 feet from high power lines. The resulting RF interference renders even the most expensive $600-800 wireless microphone solutions worthless. Wired microphone even have a problem, even with grounding wires you still pick up pops clicks and hums over fifty feet.

So, how about it? There are plenty of devices that can take an audio stream off a network and output a sound wave? How about a device that can record the sound wave and output an audio stream?

FYI - consumer or prosumer means less than four digits...I'm sure studios and recording studios have plenty of expensive options available.

-JoeShmoe
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