Sennheiser EW-D Handheld transmitter, power button disable

[ZadTrax]

Hello fellow, audio engineers for church and live production.

I currently have upgraded my in-house wireless microphone systems to the Sennheiser EW – D 835 Wireless handheld transmitter microphone systems for both my vocalists as well as speaking handheld announcement microphones at my church. I previously have used the Sennheiser G 2 100 Series wireless microphone systems for many years at that venue, but have recently switched over to the EW-D Systems.

On the old systems of the G2, it was very easy to lock the power on on the wireless handheld transmitter so that the microphone would stay powered on whether you pushed the power button on or off. This solve the problem of talent accidentally hitting the power button with their hand when holding a wireless handheld microphone, and the audio engineer would be out of luck. I am currently trying to figure out how to find a way on the EWD systems to power on the wireless handheld transmitter microphone and keep the power button disengaged or locked on, so that talent doesn’t accidentally press the power button while using it in their hand and shutting off the wireless microphone transmitter on stage.

The only thing I’ve been able to find on researching Sennheiser‘s website is that you can deactivate the mute switch on the microphone, but the power switch on the microphone still remains functional, no matter what I tried to do. Does anyone know if on the digital transmitter systems you can deactivate the power switch or lock the power switch on so no one bumps it while using it during an event and then disengage or unlock the power switch after an event so you can power down your microphone when you’re done with your event? This is something you used to be able to do on the G2 series, but I currently can’t find it on the EWD series.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Brian
-A hard-working live audio engineer at multiple churches in the San Francisco Bay area.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Sorry, no, you can't disable the transmitter power buttons on the EW-D SKM handheld or SK pocket units.

But the power button in the handheld SKM mic is tucked away on the base next to the antenna and has to be held down for a couple of seconds to switch the thing off, so it's really not something that's likely to happen accidentally through a casual brush of the talent's hand!

However, if you absolutely do need a power lock-out function you'll have to upgrade to the EW-DX range, since the associated receivers and transmitters do have that function (called Auto-Lock in the menu).

Although there is a degree of cross compatibility between the EW-D and EW-DX components, allowing a mix-n-match approach, I'm afraid the auto-lock function only works between EW-DX receivers and EW-DX transmitters, so you would need to either swap out your existing EW-D gear for EW-DX equivalents, or add additional EW-DX receivers and transmitters.

That said, it's really not something I'd lose any sleep over and, if it helps to reassure you at all, in my personal experience of owning and using EW-D products for six months or so, no one has ever accidentally switched off their handheld transmitter...

[AlecSp]

As Hugh says...

When I put together a 4 mic pack, we ended up opting for EW-DX transmitters with EW-D receivers. Didn't need any of the features in the EW-DX receivers, but there was a lot to like about the transmitters.

Benefits of EW-DX transmitters from our perspective):
- Display of transmitter name, even when off.
- Charging contacts, allowing the Tx units to be stored in the chargers, with no need for battery replacements
- Menu system on the transmitters, including the functionality you want.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Ah... I stand corrected! I thought the Auto-Lock function had to be sent from the receiver, but it seems it can be configured directly on the EW-DX transmitters.

So that means you'll just need to replace your EW-D SKM handhelds with new EW-DX SKM handhelds which will still work with your EW-D receivers.

...although I still don't know how anyone could turn the handheld transmitter off by accident.