SCN: What prompted you and Bob Crowley to establish RF Venue in 2009?
Chris Regan: The industry was undergoing a massive shift. The FCC had recently vacated the 700 MHz band for wireless mics and later most of the 600 MHz band, forcing countless systems to be traded in or redesigned. Bob and I saw a clear opportunity to address the growing challenge of more wireless devices competing for less available spectrum. Our mission became eliminating wireless mic dropouts and interference—developing innovative antenna designs and system tools compatible with any brand to dramatically improve performance. That mission still drives us today.
SCN: Generally speaking, what venues are the most difficult for managing wireless audio?
CR: Generally, larger venues with high channel count systems are the most complex. These spaces typically experience higher RF noise levels during events, often compounded by temporary, third-party systems that must be accounted for. That said, the immediate spectrum environment is also a huge factor. For example, it is inherently harder to make wireless systems work reliably in a dense urban area like in broadcast facilities in Times Square versus in a more rural environment where the ambient noise levels and interference sources are far lower.
SCN: What are the main causes of wireless mic dropouts?
CR: In an indoor environment, a wireless mic’s signal can drop out due to multipath reflections—RF signals bouncing off walls, stages, and equipment—as the mic's angle, orientation, and location change. This is very common and notoriously difficult to troubleshoot. Many of RF Venue's products, like the Diversity Fin Antenna and circularly polarized antennas such as the CP Beam, are specifically designed to overcome these dropout events. The other most common cause is from poor frequency coordination or improperly implemented antennas and RF system infrastructure, resulting in insufficient signal reaching the mic receiver. We see these issues across systems of all sizes and budgets.
SCN: Why is it not recommended to mix-and-match wireless mics from different manufacturers within a production?
CR: We take great pride that RF Venue’s products work with all brands of wireless and across all project budgets. With UHF wireless systems, it is generally fine to mix and match brands and models, provided you accurately account for them in your frequency coordination plan. We frequently get questions about digital versus older analog systems; the fact is, both can successfully coexist in a venue if the overall system design and coordination are robust. To help professionals navigate these challenges, we offer excellent free tools on the RF Venue website, such as Wireless System Builder, designed to streamline single or multi-brand wireless projects.
A common mistake we see is wireless mic systems buried in an equipment rack, where their small, attached “whip” antennas have no hope of achieving line-of-sight.
SCN: RF Venue offers a number of antennas—and those come in a variety of shapes. When it comes to wireless audio, how does the shape of an antenna influence its effectiveness?
CR: Antennas are transducers—they radiate and receive RF energy within a specific frequency range. The physical dimensions determine their performance: an LPDA (often called a paddle or “shark fin”) for the 470–608 MHz UHF band must be a certain size, while a VHF version must be much larger to match longer wavelengths. Conversely, antennas for higher frequencies like 5 GHz Wi-Fi can be quite small. This is one reason UHF remains ideal for wireless audio—it balances antenna size with excellent propagation characteristics.
SCN: How important is line-of-sight for antennas?
CR: Line-of-sight is critically important to performance! If there is no clear line-of-sight between your antennas and the stage, the signal level can be greatly reduced, often to the point of complete failure. A common mistake we see is wireless mic systems buried in an equipment rack, where their small, attached “whip” antennas have no hope of achieving line-of-sight. This is the primary reason to use remote antennas—to get them up high above the audience and maintain a clear, direct path to the transmitters on stage.
SCN: Are there different concerns with regard to signal management for wireless mics versus in-ear monitors?
CR: Yes, one best practice is to deliberately try to separate your wireless mic frequencies and in-ear monitors into different parts of the available frequency band. When you space these systems apart from each other, you greatly reduce the potential for intermodulation and noise problems that you might encounter if you placed them all together in one tight frequency range. They still need to be coordinated, but in general it will be much easier to deploy and monitor a system that way.
SCN: What’s the response been for your new RF PA Extension Kit?
CR: The response has been fantastic. Live sound providers are constantly asked to deliver audio to remote zones—greenrooms, lobbies, or large outdoor areas like parades and graduations. Running cable to those spaces is time-consuming and messy. The RF PA Extension Kit eliminates that hassle with reliable wireless transmission and built-in delay for perfect sync. It’s quickly becoming a must-have in the production audio toolkit.
SCN: How are new technologies like WMAS and DECT NR+ impacting wireless audio?
CR: WMAS (Wireless Multichannel Audio System) is an exciting advancement in wireless audio because it allows for a high channel count to operate in a very narrow spectrum range, along with advanced monitoring and bi-directional radio capabilities. Currently, Shure and Sennheiser are the two primary players shipping WMAS products. It’s still early days in the market, so it will be interesting to watch how the technology matures and where it is adopted. DECT NR+ operates in the 1.9 GHz band and was originally built for IoT applications like smart meters, but its mesh capabilities show real promise for future pro audio use cases.
SCN: You’re also very active with the Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance. Why is PAMA so important for the Pro AV industry?
CR: I’ve been involved with PAMA for many years and recently had the honor of chairing the organization. PAMA is a fantastic group that meets regularly to discuss ongoing trends and organize speaking events to promote its mission of high-quality audio. One of the latest efforts is the Hearing Rocks campaign, which is centered around promoting hearing health and safe listening environments—a critically important issue that isn’t currently getting enough attention in the industry. PAMA is unique in that it can provide a unified voice for member companies on a range of technical and policy topics. It also focuses heavily on the next generation of audio professionals, most recently awarding the Mark Brunner Professional Audio Scholarship to some truly driven and passionate young people.
SCN: Speaking of the Pro AV industry, where is it headed in the next few years?
CR: It’s a very exciting time in our industry. We have the unstoppable momentum of audio over IP continuing to steam ahead, with cloud-based systems seeing wider adoption. Initiatives like OpenAV Cloud, which advocates for interoperability using common API-based design approaches, are definitely worth keeping an eye on. Then, of course, there are AI and AI agents, which are changing how people design and deploy all kinds of technology products. I fully anticipate the AV industry will adopt elements of this technology to make complex systems significantly easier to design, install, and maintain. It’s an exciting new set of tools to help drive the spirit of innovation that founded RF Venue.
