What’s New in WSB

If you have tested this before, start at the top and stop when you reach the date you last looked. Everything above that line is new since you were here.

← WSB Documentation

• Wireless PA: the RF PA Extension Kit

  Plan RF Venue’s RF PA Extension Kit, the wireless link from the mixer to remote powered speakers, on its own or alongside mics and in-ears. Each rack transmitter sends two frequencies, coordinated with everything else in the plan. The plan draws it the way it is set up: a stock dipole on each of the two rear BNCs, no combiner, and any number of receivers at the speakers. The equipment list carries one kit per transmitter, with the RF PA documents and videos.

• What are you planning?

  Step 2 starts with three buttons: Mics, In-ears and Wireless PA. The equipment list offers only what is switched on, so a mics-only plan never wades through in-ears. Switching a type off takes its equipment out of the plan; switching it back on brings it back.

• TV channels at this address

  Under Advanced on the frequency plan, every TV channel the listings say reaches the address, weakest first, with each station’s signal. The listings measure for an antenna 4 m up outdoors, and inside a building many stations are far weaker: tick the channels you know are usable at your venue and recalculate. The plan says which ones you chose, on screen and in print. Where a plan comes up short, the note under it links straight here.

  Advanced now sits just above the frequency tables, so its controls open where you clicked. Lock channels and tick TV channels in any order; one Recalculate applies both.

• One color per system on the chart

  Each system in a plan now has its own color on the spectrum chart, matching its tuning-range bar below: blue, orange and green, chosen to stay distinct for red-green color blindness. A circle marks a mic, a square an in-ear.

• Rebuilding after TV channel choices

  Ticking TV channels wakes the scan’s Build with this scan button, and every rebuild keeps your TV channel choices. The threshold’s ⓘ now brings back its explanation.

• Edit or start over from the bottom of a plan

  Under the rack elevation, ← Edit equipment & venue and Start over for anyone who has read to the end.

• The scan threshold, explained where you set it

  The first time you load a scan, a short note under the threshold explains the dashed line: anything above it counts as in use, so drag it up if too few frequencies are placed, or down if a signal you can see is not being avoided. After Got it the note stays behind the ⓘ beside Threshold.

• Cleaner printed plans

  The spectrum chart no longer splits across two pages, the equipment list fills the first page and carries its column headings onto the next, the guide link prints as a short address, and the page background no longer prints.

• The equipment list stays on screen

  The list under the equipment search no longer opens below the edge of the window, and a product line with nothing clear of local TV at the address shows its bands grayed instead of looking missing.

• Lock channels and recalculate

  Advanced, on the frequency plan, lets you lock the channels you want to keep, ask for a new frequency on any one channel, or recalculate every unlocked channel. Locked channels never move, and each change gets its own link.

• Equipment list and frequencies first

  A plan now opens on the system overview, then the equipment list and the frequency plan, with the signal chains and rack after them. A Jump to bar at the top goes straight to each part.

• Channel names stay with the plan

  Names you type on the frequency plan — Pastor, Keys, HH1 — are kept with the plan’s link and come back when it is opened.

• Easier to find what’s there

  Brand buttons under the equipment search; each band’s tuning range in the brand list; and the MHz clear of local TV beside every rating, not only in its tooltip.

• Two MIPRO bands withdrawn for now

  ACT-311 and ACT-312 in bands 5NC and 5ND could not be coordinated, so any plan that chose them failed. They are out of the list until they can be; 5A is unaffected.

• More complete TV station data

  The TV stations behind every plan now come from SoundBase’s rebuilt TVScout: each station within 50 miles, judged against the FCC’s published coverage and the terrain, low-power stations included. A typical address shows about seven more TV channels in use than before — the earlier data missed stations that reach it — so some bands have less room than they used to. Plans built before today keep the TV data they were built with.

• A band with room, one click away

  When a band you choose has little or no clear spectrum at the address, Step 2 says so and names one that has room — the same model first — with a button to switch. On a plan where a model could not place every channel, Switch and rebuild does both at once. Gear marked Have is never changed.

• Audio-Technica 3000 Digital Series

  The ATW-DR3120 dual receiver, and its Dante version the ATW-DR3120DAN, are in the equipment picker in bands DE2 and EE1.

• Name your channels

  A line above the frequency tables now says what was easy to miss: click CH 1 or MIX 1 and type a name — Pastor, Keys, HH1 — and the names print with the plan.

• Typing a quantity

  Typing a number like 16 into Units now gives 16. It used to read 61.

• Shure ULX-D G57 and SLX-D+

  ULX-D in band G57 (ULXD4, ULXD4D and ULXD4Q), and the new SLX-D+ receivers (SLXD4+, SLXD4D+ and SLXD4Q+) in G57, G58, H55 and J52, are now in the equipment picker.

• A clear way back to change a plan

  “← Edit equipment & venue” at the top of a built plan, and again under the equipment list, opens the steps with everything you entered, so you can change or add channels and build again. Start Over is still there for a fresh start.

• A welcome for first-time visitors

  Someone arriving for the first time now sees what Wireless System Builder does and what they will get — coordinated frequencies, antennas and distribution, a rack diagram, a plan to share — before Step 1. It stays out of the way for anyone returning to a draft, opening a plan link, or looking at a plan they built.

• Works on a phone

  Nothing runs off the side of a phone screen any more. Drawings fit the screen — tap one to see it full size; frequency tables always show the frequency; the equipment list reads as rows; and the equipment picker fits. On a phone, set the scan threshold in the box under the chart rather than by dragging its line.

• Scans wider than the plan

  Load a scan or a Spectrum Recorder batch that covers more than the plan’s range — a recorder set to 470–2000 MHz, say — and the chart now shows all of it. The range the plan coordinates stays clear; everything outside it is lightly shaded and marked as not coordinated. Zoom to your system’s band for full detail. Recorder files that run past 1 GHz now load correctly too.

• A free guide to wireless dropouts

  The button under the equipment list now offers RF Venue’s free guide, Conquering Wireless Dropouts: the five common causes of mic and in-ear dropouts, and the practical fixes.

• The right documents and videos for your system

  Helpful docs now lists each RF Venue product in your system with its own Spec sheet, Quick sheet, Instructions and 3D drawing, and Helpful videos shows that product’s own videos. Both come straight from the product pages on rfvenue.com, so they are always the current, approved versions.

• Import to Wireless Workbench

  A new Share option downloads a plan’s frequencies for Shure Wireless Workbench: one file per system, named for its manufacturer, model and band, in Shure’s frequency-list format. The panel that opens lists the files and the steps. Workbench may not show every frequency green for other manufacturers’ profiles; a scan at the venue is still the check.

• Drag the threshold on the chart

  The dashed threshold line has a grip: drag it up so only stronger signals count (more frequencies placed), or down so weaker ones count too. The level shows as you drag, and the Threshold box follows.

• Names on the plan are optional

  Step 1 asks only for the address. Tick Add Prepared for / Prepared by beside it to open those fields and the logo. Untick it and they come off the plan, but what you typed is kept if you tick it again.

• Dark mode

  A sun and moon switch under the RF Venue logo turns the page dark, easier on the eyes late at night. Without a choice it follows your computer's own light or dark setting; once you pick, this browser remembers it. Light mode is softer on screen too, off-white paper rather than bright white. A PDF always prints light and white.

• “Clear of local TV” instead of “Plenty of room”

  The equipment picker's rating now says what it measures: how much of each band the FCC's TV listings leave clear at your address, as Much, Some, Little or None. It is a guide for comparing bands, not a promise about the venue: TV that never reaches inside, and other wireless systems the listings do not carry, only show up in a scan. Hover a rating for the MHz.

• Sign Up and Level Up

  The Where to Buy button under the equipment list is now Sign Up and Level Up, an invitation to RF Venue's upcoming live webinars. A plan a dealer or integrator builds for a customer no longer ends by pointing that customer at a store.

• See what the scan is avoiding

  Yellow blocks along the bottom of the chart mark every stretch the scan puts above the threshold, the frequencies the plan keeps clear. They share the threshold's yellow and black with the line, its grip and the Threshold box, and the Avoided key above the chart hides them.

• Know when the plan matches the scan

  Once built, the button turns gray and reads ✓ System built. Change the threshold or the scan and it turns green again. Frequencies that moved flash green in the table.

• Stay put while it re-coordinates

  Build with this scan no longer jumps back to the top of the page. The plan stays on screen, dimmed, with RF Chef cooking beside the button, and the new one appears in the same place.

• Small things

  Back to the builder on What’s New and the documentation; Upload Scan Data; a tighter chart; a shorter feedback window.

• Coordinate around your own scan

  Upload a scan in the Frequency plan — a two-column CSV, or a spectrum recorder’s .zip — set the Threshold (start at −80 dBm; the ⓘ explains it) and click Build with this scan. Anything louder than the threshold is avoided. A recording is coordinated as a snapshot of its loudest moments across every file. The scan is saved with the plan, so its link and PDF show what it was built around.

• A new spectrum chart

  One larger chart: TV stations shaded, your scan, the threshold, every frequency and each model’s range. Drag across it to zoom into a range, double-click to zoom back out, and hover for the frequency, TV channel, scan level and channel name. Turn mics, in-ears, TV stations or the scan on and off above it.

• Play back a recording

  With a recorder .zip loaded, Playback steps through it one recording at a time, with ▶ to play it through. Coordination always uses the Snapshot.

• Never in closed spectrum

  Plans now always keep clear of TV channel 37 and the 600 MHz band, where wireless microphones may not operate, whatever the TV map says. The 614–616 MHz guard band stays open.

• One Share button

  Copy link, Download PDF and Import to D-Tools now sit under a single Share button, above the sheet and in the row of buttons at the bottom of the window, so it is always within reach however far down the plan you are.

• “New Build” is now “Start Over”

  Same button, clearer name.

• Your plan’s link heads the email to RF Venue

  Email this plan now puts the plan’s link on the first line, so whoever reads it at RF Venue can open your exact plan in one click.

• Your logo on the plan (experiment)

  + Add logo, under Company in Step 1, puts your company’s logo in the plan’s By line in place of the company name, so a plan you send a customer carries your mark as well as RF Venue’s. It is kept small, the height of the name it replaces. The logo is remembered in your browser and saved with each plan, so its link and PDF show it too. Click the thumbnail to change it.

• An easier-to-read frequency plan

  Heavier tuning-range bars and frequency marks, and larger, darker text in the spectrum drawing. Each range is now named above its own bar, so a long one no longer runs off the edge. Click or Tab to edit sits right after CH 1.

• Column headings in the model list

  Name, Model, Band, Type, Rack and Spectrum, pinned at the top of each manufacturer’s list, replacing the “Best here” heading.

• Audio-Technica builds work again

  Systems with Audio-Technica equipment failed with a SoundBase error from 30 September. Fixed. The discontinued M3 in-ear system is no longer offered; the 3000 Series is.

• Audio-Technica and MIPRO frequencies now show

  Plans with Audio-Technica or MIPRO equipment said every one of their channels could not be placed, even when they had been. The frequencies were being found and then dropped before the sheet was drawn. Fixed, and plan links built before the fix now open with their frequencies too. Thanks Adam and Jim.

• Your setup survives leaving the page

  What’s New and Documentation now open in a new tab, and the wizard remembers your location, names and equipment in this browser, so going somewhere and coming back no longer empties it. Thanks Jim.

• New Build

  A New Build button above a finished sheet starts again from an empty wizard. Your name and company stay filled in, and the plan you were on keeps its link. Thanks Jim.

• Import to D-Tools

  Beside Download PDF, Import to D-Tools downloads the plan’s equipment as an Excel file: manufacturer, model, quantity and description, with gear you already own marked owner-furnished. In D-Tools SI, open the project and use Import and Update in the Project Editor; in D-Tools Cloud, import it under Catalog › My Products. Prices are left out so your own D-Tools pricing applies.

• Every plan has its own link

  When a plan is built the address bar changes to a link of its own, and a Copy link button sits beside Download PDF. Bookmark it or send it: it opens that exact plan, frequencies and all, even for someone without the site password. Email this plan includes the link too.

  Opening a link never re-coordinates, so the frequencies stay as they were when it was built. To change a plan, open it and click Edit location & equipment (this asks for the site password). Building again makes a new link; the old one never changes. Channel names typed onto the sheet are not saved with the link yet.

• HubSpot tracking, as on rfvenue.com

  WSB now runs RF Venue’s HubSpot tracking code, the same one rfvenue.com uses, with its cookie notice. Unlike WSB’s own counting it does set cookies. The admin pages are left out.

• Feedback sends itself

  Send feedback now emails Chris and Paul directly from the site, whatever email you use. Add your name or email and they can reply to you. Copy instead is still there if you want it.

• WSB now counts how it is used

  Visits, how far each visit gets — location, equipment, Build, PDF, Where to Buy — and whether builds succeed and how long they take, so the team can see what is working as more people try it. No names, no email addresses, no street addresses. A visit is a random number your browser makes up for itself, plus the IP address it came from, which is looked up to the organization it belongs to so the team can see which companies are trying WSB. Locations are kept as a state, or a point rounded to about 11 km.

• “Plenty of room” instead of percentages

  Every band in the equipment picker now says how much room it has at your location, in words with a small meter: Plenty of room, Good, Tight or No room here. It is read from the widest clear stretch of spectrum, which is what decides how many channels fit. Hover the rating for the MHz. The actual channel count still comes from Build My System.

• Models grouped by product line

  Hover a manufacturer and its models are listed under their product lines — Axient Digital, ULX-D, QLX-D and so on — best band first in each. At the top, Best here shows one band per product line. Bands with no room are folded away; click the line to see them. This replaces the 24 September list ranked by percentage, which was hard to scan if you already knew which model you wanted.

• Half-rack units share a rack unit

  Receivers and transmitters that are half a rack wide are now drawn two to a rack unit, side by side, the way they actually mount — an odd one out sits beside a blank half-plate. A system of four PSM900 transmitters now takes two rack units instead of four, and the rack size follows. The equipment picker shows HALF or FULL beside each model where we know it. Widths are read off the manufacturers’ spec sheets, so far for Shure’s Axient Digital, ULX-D, QLX-D, SLX-D, PSM1000 and PSM900. Anything without one is still drawn full width, so a rack may be larger than it needs to be, never too small.

• Room to grow on the distro and combiner

  The signal-chain drawings say how many output pairs and combiner inputs are still free — “5 output pairs available, 9 in total · 4 in use” — so you can see what a system can take before it needs more hardware.

• No “Free” count on the rack

  The rack elevation says how many rack units the system uses, but no longer how many are left over: the rack size is our suggestion, and you may well choose a bigger one.

• Sennheiser Digital 6000 is no longer listed

  It has little presence in the market and only lengthened the list. Hidden, not deleted, if it turns out to be missed.

• QLX-D J50A corrected

  The catalogue had QLXD4 J50A tuning up to 636 MHz, past the 616 MHz limit and into cellular spectrum, so it looked like it had far more room than it does. It now matches the ULX-D J50A.

• Where to Buy

  A blue Where to Buy button under the equipment list, straight after the RF Venue total. It opens the Where to Buy page on rfvenue.com: authorized online retailers, system integrators and distributors worldwide. It is a plain link. Nothing about the plan or the customer goes with it, and the app keeps no record of who clicked.

• Browse by manufacturer

  Click the empty equipment field and hover a manufacturer: every model it makes appears beside the list, most open spectrum at your location first, with the clear MHz next to each percentage. Click one to add it. From the keyboard, → steps into the models and ← steps back. Manufacturers are now listed Shure, Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Audix, MIPRO. Bands above 900 MHz sort after the UHF ones and carry a “+900 MHz Band” tag. They score 100% only because they sit outside the TV band. MIC and IEM tags are now easier to tell apart.

• A quieter rack elevation

  The antenna arrows are gone from the rack drawing, and so is the heavy black frame around it. The signal-chain drawings above it already show what connects to which antenna, so the elevation now sticks to what sits in which rack unit. This replaces the 16 September note that both antennas were labeled on the rack elevation. They are labeled in the signal chains instead.

• Email Feedback, beside Report a Bug

  A second button in the corner. Use Report a Bug when something is broken and you can say how to repeat it; use Email Feedback for “this wording is confusing” or “could it also do X”. Feedback goes straight to Chris and Paul rather than into the issue tracker. They are separate on purpose. Opinions filed as bugs get buried under defects, and the opinions are what a prototype is for.

• Pick a manufacturer to start

  Click the empty equipment field and it lists the brands rather than nothing. You no longer need to know a model name to get going — useful for speccing a new system, and for building the same system twice to compare two brands.

• Name your channels

  Click any CH 1 or MIX 1 in the frequency plan and type over it — “Pastor”, “Keys”, “Lav 3”. The names print with the plan, so a customer or an install tech gets a sheet in their own language. They last as long as the page is open. Reload and they are gone, so print or save before you leave.

• The whole form works from the keyboard

  Add a model and Tab goes to that row’s quantity, not back to the first row. Tab again for Add More, which returns you to the search box for the next model; once you are done, Tab from there lands on Build My System. Escape closes the dropdown without eating what you had typed. Built for anyone who quotes all day and would rather not reach for the mouse.

• The TV occupancy chart, redrawn

  One continuous band instead of a row of boxes, and the station callsigns lie flat rather than standing on their side. It is now headed “TV Channel Occupancy at” your address, above the chart rather than buried inside it.

• Simpler tables

  The frequency plan is one table per model, headed by that model, with no repeated Model column and no TV channel column — the chart above already shows the channels. The equipment list is down to SKU, Item, Qty and MAP, and the RF Venue Total now sits directly under the RF Venue products it totals.

• Drawing corrections

  The antenna cables now land on the ANT A and ANT B inputs instead of pointing at the side of the box. Both antennas are labeled on the rack elevation, not just the microphone one. The distro no longer claims nine output pairs when it has four.

• It says Prototype

  The flag under the title, and the documentation with it. Same app, more honest word.

• Screenshots on bug reports

  Grab a screenshot to your clipboard — ⌘⌃⇧4 on a Mac, Win+Shift+S on Windows — then click the screenshot box in the report form and paste. You can also drag a file in or choose one. On a tool that is mostly drawings, a picture of the problem is worth more than a paragraph about it.

• This page

  So you can see what has changed since your last test without asking anyone.

• Report a bug from the page

  A button in the bottom corner of every page. Your name, one line on what went wrong, what you expected and what happened. No GitHub account needed — it files straight to the team with the version, your location, your equipment list and everything else that was on screen already attached. Please use this rather than mentioning something in passing. It keeps a record, and nothing gets lost.

• Portable or installed antennas

  A new choice at the top of the form. Portable specifies a Diversity Fin IPX and a CP Stage on stands. Installed specifies a Diversity Architectural and a CP Architectural in matte white, for a wall or a ceiling. The drawings on the report change to match, redrawn from RF Venue’s engineering drawings.

• Upload your own spectrum scan

  Optional, in the Frequency Plan section. A standard two-column CSV from an analyser — frequency and level — is drawn in a spectrum window above the DTV chart. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded. It is context for whoever reads the report; it does not change the frequency plan.

• Helpful Docs for your Project

  A new section above Helpful Videos, carrying spec sheets, install guides and 3D models for the RF Venue products this particular system specifies.

• Contact RF Venue

  Real people who come back within twenty-four hours, with the customer’s own project details already attached to the message. Carries our 92 NPS and links to the customer commitment.

• WSB Documentation

  Linked under the RF Venue logo. How the tool works, where the numbers come from, and what it deliberately will not tell a customer.

• A header you can scan

  What the system is on the first line, where it is on the second. A category with nothing in it is left out rather than written as a zero.

• Drawing corrections

  Cables now land on the box they actually connect to, combiners report their own inputs rather than the transmitter count, and both legs of a cascade are drawn.

• RF Chef

  He keeps you company while the calculators think. You are meant to almost miss him.

• Any address, suggested as you type

  Start typing a venue or an address and pick it from the dropdown. Anywhere in the United States, by name or by street address. Before: three fixed “Try” buttons. Those are gone.

• SKUs come from the dealer price list

  RF Venue products are taken from the price list the company already maintains, so new products reach the tool as that list is updated rather than by someone editing the app.

• Custom devices look possible

  We tested whether the coordination service will place a device it has never heard of. It will. That is the groundwork for letting a customer enter gear that is not in the catalogue — not built yet, but no longer an unknown.

• Live at wsb3.rfvenue.com

  One shared password, one login for everyone.

• Coordinated against live TV occupancy

  Frequencies are placed around the DTV stations actually on the air within fifty miles of the venue, read at the moment you ask rather than from a stored list.

• Larger systems

  Systems now carry to seventeen connections, and the tool stops drawing ones it cannot specify honestly rather than drawing them wrong.

• Nothing disappears quietly

  Equipment that could not be given frequencies is named on the sheet with what it did get, instead of vanishing from the report as though it had never been asked for.

Anything not on this list is worth reporting, including things that only look wrong. A report that turns out to be correct behaviour costs a minute; a problem nobody mentioned costs a customer.