Mixer Tackles RF Nightmare with New Gear

Phoenix, AZ (December 18, 2025)—Having lived and worked in New York for eight years, production sound mixer Jesse Kennedy was surprised to find that when he moved to Phoenix, AZ that the RF landscape was just as challenging.

“I thought New York was bad, frequency-wise, but the RF landscape was varied enough that I could always find a few clean frequencies regardless of their gear block.” recalls Kennedy. His Lectrosonics DSR4 digital slot receiver became a useful tool in taming the region’s complicated RF environment. “For whatever reason, the Phoenix Valley is like an RF nightmare and my older block 21 transmitters were almost inert in many places.”

Recognizing that he likely wasn’t the first person in Phoenix to encounter this problem, Kennedy turned to the collective wisdom of the local community. “I started asking other local mixers to see how they dealt with the RF challenges here. It was assuring to hear that many of them had gone to Lectrosonics digital solutions.”

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The adoption of the DSR4 was immediately effective. “Once I went to the DSR4, wireless spectrum interference wasn’t an issue anymore,” Kennedy says. “But the real revelation for me with the DSR4, was that it allowed me to maintain consistency with my older gear—it didn’t become obsolete. I can use a mixture of my new DBu and LT transmitters with my old plug-on transmitters, and in Hybrid compatibility mode, with a few button pushes, I can dial up anything I want, and there’s no restrictions on frequency spacing. That’s been amazing.”

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Kennedy has tackled corporate gigs and commercials for respected brands including Verizon and Archwell Health, and documentary features like a recent piece on Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers.