49.89 MHz in Austria?

[John Nantz]

I've got this old RCA lavalier that works on 49,89 MHz and was wondering if there is any way to use it in Austria. I've tried to answer my question with Internet searches but got nowhere.

In the US this is a baby monitor or wireless mic frequency so it is probably a short range. I haven't used it except to verify that it works (In the USA) so I don't know what it's actual range is.

Besides the question about if it can be used in Austria, if there is a way to determine what other countries (Europe and Canada especially) it could be used in that would be very helpful, too.

[Richard Crowley]

Google says: http://www.erodocdb.dk/docs/doc98/of.../ERCRep025.pdf is the"THE EUROPEAN TABLE OF FREQUENCY ALLOCATIONS AND APPLICATIONS IN THE FREQUENCY RANGE 8.3 kHz to 3000 GHz "

Page 59 of that document says: 48.5 - 50 MHz is allocated to "land mobile" and contains references to the details

And : http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreports/tr018.pdf is "FREQUENCY BANDS ALLOCATED TO BROADCASTING" where, at the top of page 11 is says: "47 - 61 MHz" is allocated for "land mobile and amateur" and lists common uses include: "Defence systems, On-site paging, PMR, Wind profilers, Space Research/EESS, Amateur".

According to that second document, there are several bands indicated for "Radio Microphones" including: 41 - 47 MHz, 174 - 216 MHz, 470 - 790 MHz, 790 - 862 MHz, 1785 - 1800 MHz.

My conclusion from a brief overview is that 49.98 is probably not an officially sanctioned frequency for wireless microphones in the EU. If you wanted to try it for brief, casual, "tourist" applications, you might be able to get away with it. But I wouldn't dream of using something like that for any kind of official production use outside the USA.

But even more important, that seems like very old and questionable gear to even plan on using for international travel. I doubt it is all that great even at home. Why spend thousands of $$$$ on travel, etc, to use an antique, questionable piece of gear like that? It seems like the very definition of "false economy". As with many old-line electronics "superpowers", RCA doesn't even exist anymore except as a consumer brand applied to various products.

[Paul R Johnson]

In Europe, you'll find 49MHz used for radio controlled cars, boats, aircraft - it was an overflow from 27MHz, where we used to run such services. It's unprotected and not suitable for radio microphones. It's also fairly common for radio equipment to be looked at if you bring it into europe - and just a bit risky!

I'd give up with it - it will be unreliable and just a bit pointless!

[John Nantz]

After spending quite a few hours following up on the references I can see answer to my question is not going to come quickly.

Richard - those were very helpful references. When I did my searching the first one didn't come up and wading through it I can see that you took some real effort. The page 59 of the 025.pdf document was a bit difficult to figure out but as I started going to the referenced footnotes: EU2, EU3, European footnotes 5.162A, 5.164, etc., and the EN 300 footnotes, it became clear that there was a chance for a lavalier to fit into the frequency range. The scary part was the word "Military". I certainly don't want to mess with them! Heck, regular Government offices are bad enough.

In the process I came across another link but I haven't figured out yet how to make use of it at this time. https://www.rtr.at/en/m/Frequenzen

Spent some time on the 018.pdf document too.

Sure wish I could find someone knowledgable to actually talk to.

As for Paul's thought about giving it up ... well, I've already got this unit and it does work, actually quite nicely. The price was right (free) and for the moment it gives me an opportunity to capture some audio that is otherwise very difficult to capture, mainly in large crowded public gatherings where a regular mic just picks up too much noise. I've had the Sennheiser G3 system on my radar for some time but that is really pricey. A wireless lavalier is not the highest priority at the moment and since they're fairly expensive I'd like to learn the ins-and-outs of using one starting with this.

It has been through Heathrow once and they didn't check it. I didn't know it would be something "sensitive." Fortunately, maybe, it was never used. However, thanks for the warning and I'll see what I can do to avoid running into a problem on the next trip should I choose to bring it.

While this unit would probably not be the first choice of a professional, it does work surprisingly well for as old as it is, dating back to the early VCR camcorders. What about if I called it "a retro lavalier", would that help any???

[Richard Crowley]

You could always plead that you thought the word "defence" refers to something like those invisible barrier collars people use for their dogs.

(In reality, "defence" is generally the European spelling, while "defense" is the AmEngish spelling.

Defence vs. defense - Grammarist