The capsule which we are using in the locus mike is the panasonic MCE-4000:

High-quality subminiature electret microphone cartridge (omnidirectional characteristic).

Frequency range 20-20,000Hz Sensitivity 5mV/Pa/1kHz, ±3dB Output impedance 2.2kΩ S/N ratio > 58dB Coupling capacitor 0.1-4.7µF Admiss. ambient temp. 0-40 °C Power supply 1.5-10V DC current /0.5mA

This looks kind of similar to the Panasonic WM61 except that the required voltage (2v) for the WM61 is higher than the voltage delivered by the stream box I'm kind of intrigued that it is giving significantly improved results - unless of course you are using an external power supply or battery ?

I too have been thinking that it is time to improve the microphone quality, and I think it definitely boils down to more gain so higher voltage or preamp - maybe using the +5 volts from the usb plug could help I did a few tests with this but was put off by ground noise...

Concerning Parabolic reflectors: yes we did quite a few tests - the mike on Marseille port uses a mini parabola which game from a toy "spy" mike - I also stuck a wire sieve on the front of the dish which when covered with several layers of nylon tights is an efficient wind shield.

We also used a dish which Conrad where selling for around 20$ at one point but it doesn't seem to be out there any more. Anyway - yes parabola will increase gain and directionality and can double up as weather protection. The disadvantage is that the smaller the parabola the higher the cut-off frequency and they will reinforce some frequencies more than others... Be careful to get a proper parabola and not just any curved object (dont believe what you read on the web) the microphone needs to be placed carefully at the focal point.

I have also been wondering about USB microphones

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?item=SP-USB-HG-T

or phantom powered preamp+sound cards

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-X2U-XLR-to-USB-Signal-Adapter/dp/B001PPXFAG

But of course this would be a more expensive solution.

Best Peter

On 8 oct. 11, at 09:24, Björn Eriksson wrote:

Thanks for the tip of this Panasonic WM61a capsule! After some googling I ended up here where there is some rather interesting advices on using this capsule, circuit suggestions and more http://www.linkwitzlab.com/sys_test.htm#Mic I am sure there is more out there, this was like the first search results. If someone knows about some good resources about usages of these capsules please post them here. I surely should want to build something like a distributed system with maybe 3 or 4 different mike positions already mounted, then possible to switch between with a switch (depending on weather and season).

All the best, Björn Eriksson

On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 1:26 AM, udo noll un@aporee.org wrote: hi august

...

  too happy with the sound I'm getting and I'm almost certain  

it could

...

  be better.  What kind of adjustments have you been making to  

fine

...

  tune the sound quality?

i've replaced the original mic with a panasonic wm 61a capsule. that was definitely an (low cost) improvement low cost. udo -- radio aporee 52° 29' 66" N, 13° 25' 26" E ::: maps http://aporee.org/maps/ ::: stream http://radio.aporee.org ::: miniatures for mobiles http://aporee.org/mfm/ _______________________________________________ Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

---

Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

Peter Sinclair petesinc@nujus.net http://petersinclair.org http://nujus.net http://locusonus.org

Peter Sinclair:

The capsule which we are using in the locus mike is the panasonic MCE-4000:

High-quality subminiature electret microphone cartridge (omnidirectional characteristic).

hi Peter, maybe, but when i received mic & box, it sounded bad, so i've replaced it. works fine so far, cheers, udo

Frequency range 20-20,000Hz Sensitivity 5mV/Pa/1kHz, ±3dB Output impedance 2.2k?? S/N ratio > 58dB Coupling capacitor 0.1-4.7µF Admiss. ambient temp. 0-40 °C Power supply 1.5-10V DC current /0.5mA

This looks kind of similar to the Panasonic WM61 except that the required voltage (2v) for the WM61 is higher than the voltage delivered by the stream box I'm kind of intrigued that it is giving significantly improved results - unless of course you are using an external power supply or battery ?

I too have been thinking that it is time to improve the microphone quality, and I think it definitely boils down to more gain so higher voltage or preamp - maybe using the +5 volts from the usb plug could help I did a few tests with this but was put off by ground noise...

Concerning Parabolic reflectors: yes we did quite a few tests - the mike on Marseille port uses a mini parabola which game from a toy "spy" mike - I also stuck a wire sieve on the front of the dish which when covered with several layers of nylon tights is an efficient wind shield.

We also used a dish which Conrad where selling for around 20$ at one point but it doesn't seem to be out there any more. Anyway - yes parabola will increase gain and directionality and can double up as weather protection. The disadvantage is that the smaller the parabola the higher the cut-off frequency and they will reinforce some frequencies more than others... Be careful to get a proper parabola and not just any curved object (dont believe what you read on the web) the microphone needs to be placed carefully at the focal point.

I have also been wondering about USB microphones

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?item=SP-USB-HG-T

or phantom powered preamp+sound cards

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-X2U-XLR-to-USB-Signal-Adapter/dp/B001PPXFAG

But of course this would be a more expensive solution.

Best Peter

On 8 oct. 11, at 09:24, Björn Eriksson wrote:

...

Thanks for the tip of this Panasonic WM61a capsule! After some googling I ended up here where there is some rather interesting advices on using this capsule, circuit suggestions and more http://www.linkwitzlab.com/sys_test.htm#Mic I am sure there is more out there, this was like the first search results. If someone knows about some good resources about usages of these capsules please post them here. I surely should want to build something like a distributed system with maybe 3 or 4 different mike positions already mounted, then possible to switch between with a switch (depending on weather and season).

All the best, Björn Eriksson

On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 1:26 AM, udo noll un@aporee.org wrote: hi august

...

  too happy with the sound I'm getting and I'm almost certain it 

could

...

  be better.  What kind of adjustments have you been making to  

fine

...

  tune the sound quality?

i've replaced the original mic with a panasonic wm 61a capsule. that was definitely an (low cost) improvement low cost. udo -- radio aporee 52° 29' 66" N, 13° 25' 26" E ::: maps http://aporee.org/maps/ ::: stream http://radio.aporee.org ::: miniatures for mobiles http://aporee.org/mfm/ _______________________________________________ Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

---

Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

Peter Sinclair petesinc@nujus.net http://petersinclair.org http://nujus.net http://locusonus.org

---

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To get wireless working, the best thing to do is first get on a wired network. Then do:

sudo emerge net-wireless/wpa_supplicant

This will install some needed tools.

The next step is to figure out which is your wireless device. Try this first:

ifconfig

If you see something listed there other than "eth0" or "lo", that one is your wireless device. If you don't see anything else, do this:

iwconfig

This should give you another list of devices similar to ifconfig. Using my old USB wireless adaptor, it comes up here as "wlan0".

If you don't find your device listed there, then do:

dmesg | less

And scroll down near the bottom to see if the system tells you of errors. The kernel that alejo put on there for me already had my drivers. But, when I looked here, dmesg told me it couldn't load the firmware. So, I had to go and download and install the firmware myself. No big deal really.

Getting your card recognized by the system and loaded can be a biznatch sometimes. But, it is getting easier. With this same USB device, it took me 4 days to get it to work with gentoo 5 years ago. Two days ago, it only took a few hours, and only because I didn't have any wired network to load things directly.

Okay, now that your wireless card is loaded and recognized, you have to configure it for your network and tell the boot system to load it when booting.

Using the text editor, nano, you need to edit a few files. One of the will be:

sudo nano /etc/conf.d/net

The other will be:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

A lot of this is documented in detail here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=4

It's best to at least look at that. Many of the options will depend on your particular card or your particular network.

If you get this far and don't know how to read the docs at gentoo, it's probably best just to write here and get some assistance from Alejo, me, or some other linux gurus. Configuring is pretty straightforward.

The final thing you will need to do is tell the system to start the wireless at boot. Do the following command, substituting your device name for "wlan0":

cd /etc/init.d sudo ln -s net.lo net.wlan0 sudo rc-update add net.wlan0 default

best -august.

Hi August

Can you post to the list a synthetic howto with tips you find and the series of steps along the process, please ? this could be helpful for other streamers and we could publish it on our guidelines if you're ok in order to complete Alejo's info Let us know your next experiments with the streambox

thanks best j

Le 8 oct. 11 à 00:07, august a écrit :

...

Hi,

I finally got my stream up at my new residence in Oakland, using a wireless device to get connectivity. Thanks to Alejo for the ayuda.

I have some questions though.

Has anyone used the streambox outside? I'd like to get it outside where there is a pretty rich sound environment. Any ideas or suggestions on that? How to encase the box? Or, alternatively, how to extend the mic so that I just put that part outside?

I need to worry about both rain and dust.

Has anyone tried to make a parabolic mic for the streambox? I'm not too happy with the sound I'm getting and I'm almost certain it could be better. What kind of adjustments have you been making to fine tune the sound quality?

Any suggestions would be helpful.

best -august.

-- http://aug.ment.org GPG: 0A8D 2BC7 243D 57D0 469D 9736 C557 458F 003E 6952

---

Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

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Hello When I had my stream running in Australia (2006-7), before relocating to the US, I used a home-made parabolic microphone setup. Have a look at this URLhttp://userpages.umbc.edu/~nohe/Locus_Sonus/index.htmlfor an

Brilliant! Is that the same mic capsule that comes with the streambox?

I live directly across from Oakland Tech High School. Yesterday, there was a football game going on as well as a Gospel band practicing (as they do every Sunday). It is extremely audible to me and I'd think the mic would be able to pick it up....but doesn't.

image. I mounted a salad dish to a drainpipe outside my studio, and used a clamp and rigid piece of wire to direct a Panasonic electret capsule to the focal point of the dish. The directionality was quite good, and focused to a garden area full of birds and theatre students.

The piece of clear tubing kept the rain out and the capsule was very snug inside.

hmm. okay, I'll try something like this. I just need to get rid of the pulsing static in the signal and think of a way to extend the mic out of the streambox. Is that even possible?

Thanks, best -a.

Hello, The stream in Aix use a 4m long cable I made. It use a electret microphone as well but of lower quality. It use the same resistor/capacitance polarisation as the one taht plug directly into the box, but instead of using the 1.5v from the box input i use a 9v battery. The electronics is located about alfway from the box, otherwise I get all the static from the power line above the microphone. All shielded wire of course. The result is satisfying, a little low but OK. The battery, who wasn't new, is running since about a year now, with no problem. The microphone take virtualy no current, so it can last for years. Add solarcell to that, and you'r up for decades.

I have in mind to build a mic preamp, using 5v from the USB port, with line out level, close to the microphone. It sould work with extra long wire, like 30m i hope.

Best,

Grégoire Lauvin 06 21 19 26 57 www.gregorth.net

From: petesinc@nujus.net To: locustream@locusonus.org Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:22:28 +0200 Subject: Re: [locustream] oakland stream

...

...

hmm. okay, I'll try something like this. I just need to get rid of the pulsing static in the signal and think of a way to extend the mic out of the streambox. Is that even possible?

Before you do anything else, try grounding the box efficiently by taking a wire from one of the screw fasteners on the outside of the box (the screen connector for instance) to ground - a central heating pipe or whatever is close by or literally drive a stake into the ground

However it sounds like its coming from the mike — maybe the capacitor is faulty this would also explain why you're getting such low levals.

If you have a pc (not a mac) with a mike input you could try testing the mike on that see if still clicks on that.

The circuit diagram and values for componenets are here:

http://locusonus.org/w/index.php?page=Locustream+LocusMic

best Peter

...

Thanks, best -a.

-- http://aug.ment.org GPG: 0A8D 2BC7 243D 57D0 469D 9736 C557 458F 003E 6952

---

Locustream / Locus Sonus Streaming Project http://locusonus.org/ To unsubscribe, send a message to support@locusonus.org http://nujus.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/locustream _______________________________________________

Peter Sinclair petesinc@nujus.net http://petersinclair.org http://nujus.net http://locusonus.org

---

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Hi all!

Just to tell you that *my stream in Dakar is up*! :) http://locusonus.org/soundmap/024/

Have a nice day, KRN:)