Homemade Samson Series 1 Bracket
an article by Jim Akiba

Here are some photos of the bracket that I made to mount my Series 1 wireless receiver to my XL1. I had originally planned to have the tape door clear the bracket, but the receiver is a little too deep... so the bracket must be removed to switch tapes (a little tedious but there is only one screw so it is quick).

It uses the stock shoulder mount to hold it in place. The large hole in the bottom of the bracket fits snuggly over the little raised nub on the bottom of the camera. The bracket is coated in Plasti-kote rubber spray(you can see all the gouges in it), which in addition to gripping the receiver (which is held on with two Velcro straps) also keeps it solid because it contacts the rubber bottom of the camera.

The bracket is made of 1.5 mil aluminum which I cut with a coping saw (all I had). The whole thing is rather sloppy as you can see from the pictures, but when it is mounted on the camera it looks quite cool, and you can't see the uneven lines etc. The bracket also supports the 2aH gel cell which I use to power the receiver.

Some people asked me why I have the mono output of the receiver running to both inputs... I could use the AGC, but I find that I get better results by running the lineout from the receiver into both the left and right tracks on audio 2. I then set one level a little higher than I would normally set it manually, then I set the other much lower than I would set it normally... this way I get excellent audio all the time, if there is a loud noise or a yell or something, I will use the audio off the lower level track(done in post), when everything is normal I use the higher level. I figure it is the best way to take advantage of the two tracks. It doesn't make much sense to have two tracks recording an identical mono feed.

Another practical upshot of the bracket is that I can now set the camera down without it falling over... the bracket's bottom edge is nice and wide, unlike the camera itself which used to like to fall over when resting.

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Thrown together by Chris Hurd