"At various times, there were many articles written about me," notes John Nady, President and Founder of Nady Systems, Inc. "They called me the Father of Wireless Microphones. It's a misnomer and I correct people - I did not invent the wireless microphone. The wireless microphone has been around since the late 1940's. They were two feet long, they had tubes in them and the audio quality was terrible."
The first commercially available, albeit very poor audio quality, wireless microphones appeared in the early 1960's. There was at least one British company and three American companies producing and selling wireless microphones when Nady came on the market in 1977. What John Nady did was pioneer the wide acceptance for the wireless technology his company developed. Nady Systems also pioneered the wide acceptance of wireless in the music market, which is, of course the biggest market for wireless technology. From the music market, wireless has spun off into dozens of other markets.
How can wireless technology benefit churches?
Wireless technology has been used for quite a while in church services, especially in the bigger markets. A lot of pastors like to use wireless microphones, whether hand-held or lavaliere, in church services for obvious reasons; freedom of movement, increased physical range and the ability to feel, if not get, closer to the parish.
Hearing assistance systems is another area where wireless technology is employed in two ways: Infrared and radio transmission. Infrared and Radio wireless systems are utilized for audience listening and hard of hearing applications for the parishioners. Generally churches make use of the infrared technology for their parishioners.
On-stage hearing assistance systems, otherwise known as 'in-ear monitors' or PEMs - Personal Ear Monitors - are utilized for bigger performance oriented services featuring choirs, chorus singers and the band members. A PEM system delivers a personal monitor mix to the performer's micro-earphones. This allows the performer to sing and play perfectly in tune with the music, plus the PEM systems provides a more focused sound compared to floor monitors.
Overall, wireless covers all of the aspects of the church service: microphones for vocals or song, instruments and the instrument's amplifiers, microphones, Personal Ear Monitoring, and hearing assistance systems for the parishioners.
What features should ministers, choirs and musicians look for in a wireless system?
It depends upon budget and needs. If a minister is going to stand in a small area and just talk to the congregation, he's primarily looking at a good quality, low cost, VHF system. Other considerations could be if his church is in a densely populated area or if there are other wireless frequencies in the area such as walkie-talkies, radio stations and/or security systems. Then you would want to get into a more sophisticated wireless system. At this stage you have to look at better features such as selectivity, diversity reception, signal-to-noise ratio and tone squelch. If a Pastor is a dramatic personality, where his delivery goes from a whisper to a shout to a song, he'll want to pay more attention to the dynamic range of the wireless microphone.
What is Diversity?
Let's start with True Diversity - a term I developed and coined years ago to differentiate between the different types of diversity. Diversity is basically a means of multi-reception. True Diversity is where you have two independent receivers, each with its own antenna, built into one physical receiver unit. The two receivers are tuned to the same frequency, but the antennas are spatially located apart. Depending how the unit is set-up, the two receivers silently switch back and forth to prevent drop-outs and assure crystal clear reception. Other, cheaper forms of diversity focus around a single receiver and multiple antennas. Multiple antenna switching or a direct antenna switching/combination system, basically effects some measure of diversity action. However, while Nady offers both kinds of diversity systems, it is the opinion of the major players in the wireless industry that the two receiver/antenna diversity system is the most effective.
Tone squelch is a common feature found on wireless systems. What does it do?
Tone Squelch is a feature that is of great value to a church, especially if the church does not have a soundman operating the sound system during services. For example, any 175 megahertz signal - from any source - that comes into a live wireless receiver tuned to that frequency, will 'talk' to that receiver. In church situations, the wireless user usually save battery power by turning their audio off at the transmitter unit. When the transmitter is turned off, you now have an active receiver unit in a live PA. If any kind of spurious signal is picked up by the active receiver, what you then get is a loud, prolonged, unintelligible signal or blast of static through the loudspeaker system. These spurious signals can come in, not only from other radio sources on the same frequency, but there can be two other frequencies that happen to 'beat' together and this frequency phenomena can throw out a false component signal at 175 megahertz. Anyone who has ever been subjected to this phenomena has had the daylights scared out of them when the result is a loud, sudden noise from the speaker system.
The Tone Squelch acts as a mute. When the wireless transmitter is off, the wireless receiver will not un-mute. It is not an encryption feature, it does not prevent interference. It only prevents false signals from being picked up by the receiver unit when the transmitter is turned off. It's a feature that many smaller applications find very attractive.
Is there a great difference between wireless systems?
What needs to be understood about wireless is, there is a big difference in the added features that dramatically brings up the cost and does not make a big difference in performance. There are lower priced wireless system that list for $199.00 and have a better signal-to-noise ratio by 15 dBs, compared to another system that costs as much as thirty times more. But then again, if you're in a big city, selectivity, UHF operation and channel rejection may be very important factors that might override the need for better signal-to-noise ratio. The point I am making is the price difference between systems is much greater than the performance difference.
Someone who is contemplating adding a wireless system to their application should not be swayed by an expensive brand name. The price of the unit does not always mean it is the best system for the job. If someone thinks a system must be the best because it costs $4,000.00... Well, they maybe about to waste a huge amount of money. There are $200.00 to $400.00 systems on the market that will sound better than the $4,000.00 system, and may even offer other additional performance advantages. So, if someone is going to purchase a $4,000.00 wireless system, they should make sure they really need it.
Is it industry competition or engineering and manufacturing that has made wireless much more affordable in recent years?
What has brought the costs down is the intensifying demand for the product. Look at a consumer product like an $80.00 brand name pocket radio. If you open that radio up, it's actually as complex as a $3,000.00 wireless system in its circuitry, parts and component make-up. But 800,000 of those radios are manufactured at one time and that dramatically brings the cost-per-unit down. Years ago, Nady pioneered the mass manufacturing of wireless systems, producing as many as 10,000 units per month, compared to other manufacturers that sporadically produced 1,000 pieces here and there. That kind of mass manufacturing made wireless systems like a consumer product in terms of affordability and availability. Recently among the low cost wireless systems, price parity has been achieved in some cases.
But again, anyone looking to buy a wireless system has to always do a features and benefits comparison to make sure they won't be spending more for a lesser system. Cuts in technology are the major thing the purchaser should look out for. If you do a price comparison on lower-end wireless systems, the features between the two units should be same, such as Non-true Diversity vs. non-true Diversity or True Diversity vs. True Diversity, etc. But, since some other manufacturers don't make True Diversity systems as it was developed and so named by Nady Systems, those manufacturers who draw that comparison try to blur that distinction. So when shopping for a low priced wireless system, you have to make sure it's not a low price due to lack of technology and short cuts in performance.
What is the state of the wireless industry these days?
In the early 80's, it was just Nady, and for many years one other big competitor and a few other smaller wireless manufacturers that existed in film, radio, television broadcast and other niche markets. Since the late 80's, other entities have come into the picture and the majority of them are the big established microphone manufacturers that have introduced their own wireless product line. In addition to that, more and more smaller manufacturers from Taiwan and Asia have started to import wireless systems under many different brand names. From what we know, most, if not all, of the wireless companies out there have less to offer for equal or more money.
A lot of inferior wireless systems are purchased simply out of a lack of knowledge. People buy wireless systems without investigating what's out there. They think all systems are the same and they purchase whatever the store salesman hands them. Certainly, if everything in the world were purchased intelligently, based on the best features at the best price, then there would only be a few players in the marketplace. But, that's not how it works. There's confusion, ignorance and high pressure salespeople. Also, it's human nature for people to buy emotionally 90% of the time and intelligently 10% of the time.
What is the competition like?
I feel there are too many competitors for what the market can bear. It's not clear to me if that's helping get the concept of wireless out there to the masses, or if it's causing confusion in the market place. Certainly there have been a number of wireless manufacturers that have come and gone over the years. The ones that are going to survive are the established wireless systems manufacturers like Nady and the others that are spin-offs of the bigger microphone manufacturers.
Regarding the other smaller niche companies that are trying to reinvent the wireless 'wheel' fifteen years later - chances are they won't survive if they are not a division or a subsidiary of an established wireless or microphone company. But, I'll be the last one to say if someone is, or is not, going to survive. A lot of people thought, when I first started Nady Systems, I couldn't pioneer and market a new company and product with no money. Any smaller wireless company that is in it right now has a tough road ahead of them. But, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the smaller brand names won't be around in four or five years. Unless, of course, they have something truly new and unique to offer.
What is the future for Nady and Wireless?
In 1987, we looked at Billboard Magazine's top 100 touring acts and seventy-seven of them were using Nady Wireless and a lot of the remaining twenty-three were not even using wireless on tour. We haven't done that test since 1987, but admittedly, the numbers would be down considerably since there are so many new players in the wireless market. We still command a large share of the market, but I would think we would be having problems if we are still only mostly a wireless microphone company in ten years. Some of our competitors are going to be formidable opponents in that amount of time. We're working on a number of different things.