Rode Newsshooter Question

[Don Palomaki]

First, as a matter of interest I measured the latency of the Rode Newsshooter system at 3.8 ms, compared to a wired mic. That amounts to a bit over 0.11 NTSC frames and is consistent with the published spec.

Has anyone found the unobstructed, line-of-sight, reliable working range to be significantly impacted by the orientation of the transmitter and receiver relative to each other?

[David Peterson]

Plenty of other reasons other than range for me to not buy or use a RodeLink. (although I own two... oops! Ah well, mistakes happen)

[Don Palomaki]

Please share any technology/performance reasons if you can.

I believe that the issues revolve around handshaking/use of nearby Wi-Fi and/or BlueTooth by devices such as the smart phone I usually carry with me. The line-of-sight unobstructed distance from receiver to transmitter was perhaps 45 yards a bit under half the claimed range. The problem I've encountered is occasional drop outs lasting less than 1 sec.

When I tried the system on a bench with the TX/RX separated by a couple walls and 30 feet, the signal was OK until I brought the Galaxy S9 smart phone near by and powered it on/off, enable WiFi, or enabled BlueTooth. With the phone off or at some distance, say 10-15 feet) no apparent issue.

More to come in a week or so once I can do some spectrum analysis.

[Don Palomaki]

In a field test at ranges up to 60 yards line of sight (the max distance I tried in that session) I had no issues with the cell phone set to airplane mode and blue tooth OFF.

[Don Palomaki]

TX-XLR Battery life comment:
The Newsshooter offers a XLR plug on transmitter. Handy, but it eats batteries.

Starting with with fresh COSTCO/KIRTLAND alkaline AA batteries I ran it to cut-off.
This was a single unit with the TX and RX separated by about 30 feet and a residential wall..
Phantom power turned on and an AT AE5100 mic connected.
Started with 3 bars battery status
Battery current was 0.40 amps
41 minutes to 2 bars
88 minutes to 1 bar
125 minutes to a flashing bar
135 minutes to a flashing "!"
144 minutes to shut down.

no-load Battery voltage read 1.61 at start
no-load 1.27 at shutdown
no-load 1.38 after 3 hour recovery time

At the end of the test the receiver still showed its battery status 3 bars.

Power off battery drain is about 0.048 ma

After 3.5 hours recovery time I tried the batteries again. Three status bars for a bout 30 seconds, down to flashing "!" within 2 minutes. (This represents a useless battery.)

My take is this:
Don't expect more than 2 hours reliable service with fresh alkaline AA batteries if phantom power is on.
If batteries drops to one bar by the end of a session, toss them.

In general alkaline AA batteries give best performance at lower currents, more like 100 mA. Operation at higher currents like 0.5 amps cuts the amp-hour capacity by nearly half.. And there is large variation in performance among battery brands, especially at the higher currents.

The Rode web page states that one can expect approximately 2.5 hours alkaline battery life with phantom power on. But that will vary with the battery brand. My test result is consistent with the Rode web page info, and with typical AA alkaline battery performance.

RODE support has confirmed that:
3 bars - 66-100% battery life remaining
2 bars - 33-66% battery life remaining
1 bar - 0 to 33% battery life remaining
Flashing bar - time to replace the batteries.
The percentages are approximate and apply regardless of battery type.