Shure Wireless Workbench^® 6: Frequency Markers

Edited Transcript

In this post, we will talk about frequency markers – the tool that you can use to view coordinated frequencies in the frequency coordination tab of Wireless Workbench.

Wireless Workbench has a number of tools in the Frequency Coordination tab which enables you to input a ton of RF information about your environment, as well as a lot of different types of systems to find compatible frequencies for your entire wireless rig. As an example, we will explain how to find frequencies for just four channels of Axient Digital.

To begin, you should bring your systems into the Frequency Coordination tab by selecting your frequencies from the inventory. We will explore a few different phases of the calculator which show how frequency markers are styled differently based on their status in Wireless Workbench.

When you calculate frequencies, or simply load existing frequencies into the Frequency Coordination tab, each frequency displays a marker in the Coordination Plot view.  Each part of a frequency's markers has a specific meaning. Each part of a frequency's markers has a specific meaning.

Marker Flag

The flag is the shape at the top of the marker. If the flag is a right-pointing triangle, it indicates that these frequencies are requests, and that they are not locked. This means that these frequencies could change every time you press "Calculate".

If you would like certain frequencies to stay fixed, you can select the lock icons in the Coordination Workspace at the bottom to lock those frequencies. After doing that, you will notice that the marker headers change from right-pointing triangles to downward-pointing triangles. In subsequent calculations, the locked frequencies will stay fixed, while the unlocked frequencies are available to change frequency values.

There can be a number of reasons why you might want to lock the frequencies. The most common reason is that you will benefit by not having to resync all your transmitters or packs when a frequency has worked well in the past, and remains compatible in your current configuration.

Marker Color

If you scroll down, you will see that the sidebar on the right has a "Color Markers by" option. The default option displayed is "by compatibility", which means that when channels are compatible, they will be shown as green. And, when they are incompatible, they will be shown as red.

In this case, green markers signify that the chosen frequencies are compatible.

You can also choose to color markers by "channel color". When channel color is selected, the color of these markers will correspond to the color of each channel in the inventory. This option does not give you a view of compatibility, but, if for whatever reason, you would like to see where a specific channel is located, you will be able to determine it by the channel color.

The channel color option gives more visibility to channels as frequencies are calculated so that you can easily find the channel that you are looking for, and could aid in band planning or frequency mapping tasks.