Bees gone wild.

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Archive 2008 · Bees gone wild.

Marty Bingham
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p.1 #1 · Bees gone wild.

I shot a basketball tourmament last night with 4 AB-800's with the RFT1TX on the camera and RFT1RX on each light. Everything went well. I shot four games without a hitch.

Tonight everything went haywire. Sometimes everything worked. Sometimes 1,2,3, or none of them worked.

I reset the recievers and even went through the channel setting process. Put new batteries in the receivers. Turned everthing off and on again and finally poked it with a stick

Still nothing.

No difference in using the test button or firing from the camera hotshoe or sync cord to the RFT1TX (man that rolls of the tongue don't it).

They will fire every time if you push the dump button on the unit. And one of the even flashed while I was wiggling the cord.

The good folks at Alien Bees will be back online at nine am and I am confident that they will fix me up but in the mean time........

1.) Don't they have a forum of some sort for this sort of question?

2.) Anybody have a clue what's going on?

3.) I have a rather sleazy competitor who showed up last night and then again tonight. Could he be jamming the signal somehow? I know that sounds wierd but hey......you never know.

I would appreciate any help I can get on this. It's a pretty big gig for me. I have commitments with a local TV station so failure is not an option.

Marty

Nov 26, 2008 at 01:39 AM

Thats Fresh
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p.1 #2 · Bees gone wild.

there could have been some kinda of radio interference. or loose bulbs.

Nov 26, 2008 at 01:59 AM

bacilonur
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p.1 #3 · Bees gone wild.

They do have a forum. Those triggers were discontinued in favor of the current CyberSyncs because they're unreliable. You can send yours in for credit towards Cybersyncs.

Nov 26, 2008 at 02:29 AM

Marty Bingham
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p.1 #4 · Bees gone wild.

bacilonur wrote:
They do have a forum. Those triggers were discontinued in favor of the current CyberSyncs because they're unreliable. You can send yours in for credit towards Cybersyncs.

You are right. Cybersyncs are on the way.

Now I feel stupid about suspecting my competition

Nov 26, 2008 at 05:07 PM

bacilonur
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p.1 #5 · Bees gone wild.

snaptie2002 wrote:
Now I feel stupid about suspecting my competition

That wouldn't be entirely out of the question if you were using PWs. I've occasionally taken a Multimax into a stadium just to play with when I get bored of the game, and you can definitely screw with someone's recycling once you find their channel and just click it randomly. There's no way they'd ever know in that crowd. That's also why it's good to have two sets of triggers just in case one frequency is screwing up, which has happened before with both my PWs and Skyports without any criminal interference--some locations are just cursed.

Nov 26, 2008 at 05:26 PM

shatterkiss
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p.1 #6 · Bees gone wild.

bacilonur wrote:
That wouldn't be entirely out of the question if you were using PWs. I've occasionally taken a Multimax into a stadium just to play with when I get bored of the game, and you can definitely screw with someone's recycling once you find their channel and just click it randomly.

If I remember right, MAC has offered a service where you can have your PWs digitally-coded to unique channels or frequencies just to make sure that no one else operates on the same channel. I think it's mostly intended for big-arena sports shooters and the like.

Nov 26, 2008 at 05:42 PM

Marty Bingham
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p.1 #7 · Bees gone wild.

Just made a run down to PPR in Atlanta to rent a set of Pocket Wizards to get me through tonight. Plus I will bring two SB-800's to be on the safe side.

I'm pretty sure it was all about the old remotes going crazy.

Simon, I think you are right about the custom channels for the big arena gigs. I should be fine when the new remotes get here next week. I'm usually the only one shooting at the events I shoot. (maybe that should tell me something

)

I will have to hard wire everything for a small T&I shoot on Monday but I have been wanting to monkey around with that system anyway.

Thanks Guys,
Marty

Nov 26, 2008 at 07:08 PM

PShizzy
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p.1 #8 · Bees gone wild.

Simon is correct, MAC will digitally code your PW's and as long as youre the account holder, any PW's after will be given your code.

But that will not help with EMI and radio interference, simply with others trying to poach your strobes. Or for big arenas with lots of lights and remotes going.

Also, a lot of shooters will use 18/2 lamp cord, with add-a-taps, and use HH to light connectors, then connect all the lights onto the single light and add a single receiver. With too much EMI, having a receiver per light could result in uneven firing.

Max

Nov 27, 2008 at 03:08 AM

Marty Bingham
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p.1 #9 · Bees gone wild.

PShizzy wrote:

Also, a lot of shooters will use 18/2 lamp cord, with add-a-taps, and use HH to light connectors, then connect all the lights onto the single light and add a single receiver. With too much EMI, having a receiver per light could result in uneven firing.

Max

Sounds like a good way for me to accidentally
set a large arena on fire

Nov 27, 2008 at 05:03 AM

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