I have been a sound engineer for over 30 years, working in documentaries, fiction and ENG. In the field, I use a Nova with an MRX414. I mix ZMTs handled directly by my internal MRX receiver, which is particularly easy. But I sometimes have to combine them with one or more external transmitters, and that's where it gets complicated: each transmitter has its own band, its own settings, and I have to find frequencies that work together.
The hardest part was not finding a frequency for a single transmitter. It was making everyone coexist: avoiding intermodulation, protecting fixed transmitters, taking the location and what is already transmitting around into account.
Constraints change on every shoot
On top of that came recurring problems: other frequencies forbidden for an event, a TV channel to avoid, a frequency band banned in a country. And with every new RF system, the same question: how to integrate it without starting from scratch?
Simple, but complete
That's where the idea came from: design a system that is as simple as possible to use in the field. It also had to make it easy to keep several configurations, to find them again when a shoot comes back, and to export them to keep a record.
The goal was not to add another spreadsheet: it was to produce a coordinated frequency plan, without intermodulation, that holds up in the field.
What Yoobaa Freq does about it
- calculate a compatible frequency for each transmitter that needs one;
- protect fixed transmitters and avoid third-order intermodulation products;
- block TV channels, 5G ranges and forbidden frequencies;
- support the brands, bands and codes of RF systems;
- save several configurations and export them as CSV or JSON.
Yoobaa Freq calculates a plan from the data you enter. It does not measure the spectrum: always check on site before shooting.
Blitz Christophe Sound engineer, Brussels