On Wed, 03 May 2006 14:06:45 +0100, Laurence Payne wrote:

Don't mix through the laptop. Buy a little Behringer mixer and use
that. The price is so low it's a no-brainer.

Agreed, trying to do this with a PC isn't all the sensible, let alone a
laptop. By all means still use it as a source for the music but a cheap
CD player may well be more reliable and almost anybody can operate a CD
player. What happens if you can't make a match, are you going to lend
your laptop to someone? If you do will they be able to use it and get it
working if it misbehaves?

As for a cable, yes reliable if the cable route doesn't cross an entrance
onto the ice unprotected and no problem of 50m provided it is balanced.
Think of the FX mics around a football pitch, probably on the end of
several hundred metres of cable by the time it gets to the OB truck
ouside the ground. I suspect the mic is required at both places and radio
does give you the freedom to wander from Sin Bin to Sin Bin, into the
punters, out onto the ice for presentations etc. Draging a cable with
even half a dozen people in the way is a PITA not to mention unsafe.

What to look for in a radio mic is true diversity reception, decent
battery life, and power output (but watch for marketing hype). I'm not
sure if any of the "licence free" ones will have more than one frequency
available. Make it a condition of sale that if it turns out that the
church down next door also uses the same frequency that you can return it
for a full refund.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail