--On Friday, November 17, 2017 11:21 +0800 Ted Lemon <mellon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Nov 17, 2017, at 11:14 AM, Adrian Farrel > <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Conference centre PA not good. >> Mics very distance-sensitive. >> Not so bad that unusable, but hard work. > > Another issue is that the microphones kept running out of > power, and there's no way to charge them. Either we need > someone other than the participants doing this, or else there > needs to be resources in each room that chairs or others can > use to get microphones working when they fail. One difficulty is that every equipment requirement we impose is likely to turn into another box (crate? but see below) of stuff the secretariat or other provider has to drag to meetings, which means more aggravation, higher costs and more customs risks, etc. A hotel that tells us exactly what audio and video equipment they will have on hand as far in advance as we seem to make decisions is probably lying, or at least saying something for which they could reasonably say "things change and we had to replace some gear when the meeting rolls around. And testing equipment several years in advance and making a facility decisions on that basis is likely to be a really good, but not particularly useful, way to overconstrain the choices. That said, two observations: (1) I know wires are unfashionable these days, but traditional wired microphones rarely have problems with either running out of power or with in-room EMI, including EMI caused by WiFi, Bluetooth, and lots of other wireless things. I have not yet found out what a conference room or plenary would be like with 500 people running Wifi and Bluetooth keyboards, headsets, or mice, but I'm fairly sure I don't want to. (2) It appears to me that an increasing number of wireless microphones, like many other wireless things, are either USB-powered or USB-charged. If we could somehow prefer, or restrict ourselves to, such devices, preferably ones that can run off external power rather than just requiring that the batteries be charged, a small collection of "portable chargers" might allow prevention and/or quick fixes to microphones with dead or dying batteries. However, remember that such chargers and probably even the microphones themselves typically use Li-ion batteries that are increasingly restricted in transit because of fire concerns. I've also been through airports that try to ban batteries over some fairly low capacity entirely, whether in checked or carry-on baggage. So there may be significant constraints on ways to address the problem. At the same time, Jordi, you could write a requirement that a facility have sufficient spares or alternatives on hand to run however many microphones we need all day, every day, for a week... or we could require wired microphones with no internal batteries. Not saying either would be a good idea, but, if you are looking for something to write down, that wouldn't be too hard. best, john