Microphone Use and Care

Some larger classrooms or rooms with lecture capture capability have microphones. If using these devices, please adhere to the instructions below as these are delicate electronics.

Our classrooms have rechargeable microphones. To use them, unplug the microphone from the USB charging cable. Wait a second or two for it to connect, the light on the mic will turn red. Now press the ON/OFF button; the light on the mic will turn green, and the microphone will be working.  To turn off the microphone, press the ON/OFF button again. The light on the mic will turn red.

In the lower left corner of the touch panel, there are microphone status buttons. These will tell you if the microphone is on, estimated battery life remaining and other useful bits of information. The touch panel will also alert you if the microphone battery is nearly depleted or it is almost out of range.

These microphones are paired with that specific classroom- they cannot be used in any other classroom. If you remove a microphone from the classroom, the microphone will beep until it is returned to the classroom.

It is critical that you plug the microphone into the USB charging cable after every class! Please do not leave the mic out and unplugged for the next instructor- the next instructor may need the mic that day.

The touch panel will require you to plug in the microphones before shutting down the AV system. This is to ensure that the mics are fully charged and ready for the next instructor. Instructors at the end of the day should double-check that the microphones are plugged in. Leaving the mic unplugged overnight will drain the battery, resulting in a dead microphone for the first instructor the following day.

New and convenient way to unplug and plug microphones

One of our AV Engineers(Matt), designed a new shoe for instructors to easily plug in and unplug microphones. When you open the podium, you should find the microphones plugged in like this:

 

When you are ready to use them, gently unplug the microphone where the white arrows are as pictured below. To plug them back in, line up the white arrows and plug it back in.

 

 

 

Microphone location in Single Wide Podiums

In our smaller podiums, the microphones are usually stored in a cavity as pictured below:

 

 

Microphone location in Double Wide Podiums

In our larger podiums, the microphones are usually stored in a black drawer that flops down as pictured below:

 

 

How to properly plug a headset or lav into a transmitter

Regarding the mic connection, there are 4 gold pins in the connector, you’ll see which way it will go.  The release knob goes to the front of the transmitter.  It should clip straight in.  If it doesn’t, be sure to back it out before trying again.  If you twist it, the pins will bend and damage the equipment.  You can call us on the help phone if you have a question.

 

 

Leave the sacrificial cable plugged into the transmitter!

We’ve added a short “sacrificial” cable to the port where the microphone plugs in. Please leave this short cable plugged into the beltpack transmitter and plug your own headset mic into the end of this short cable.

With the added wear and tear of repeated unplugging/plugging personal headset mics, some of these ports were getting damaged. It will be much easier and cheaper for us to replace the short sacrificial cable, than repairing/replacing the entire beltpack transmitter.

Also, sometimes instructors unintentionally leave the sacrificial cable slightly unplugged when they’re done teaching, as pictured below on the left. This is enough to produce no audio or scratchy, glitchy audio. Before you teach in any of our rooms, please check to make sure that the sacrificial cable is plugged all the way into the transmitter as pictured on the right.

If you come into your classroom and find there isn’t a sacrificial cable or you believe the unit is damaged, use the classroom podium phone to reach us.