Field tests are important. Placing your portable field mixer inside a tornado’s path should qualify as a test of any piece of equipment’s durability.
The Weather Channel recently kicked off the fourth year of "Tornado Hunt," a show that takes viewers inside the stretch of territory known as Tornado Alley, and a Sound Devices 302 portable field mixer was used for all of the broadcasts.
The show’s Bettes Mobile (the on-air truck named after Lead Meteorologist Mike Bettes) was equipped with four vehicle-mounted HD cameras. The compact 302 mixer, developed for audio-for-picture applications, operates on either three internal AA batteries of an external 5018 VDC. The unit interfaces with wireless transmitters and receivers, and its inputs are identical to those used in the Sound Devices 522 Portable Production Mixer an MixPre-D Compact Field Mixer.
More information on the complete Sound Devices, LLC product line can be found on the company’s website, www.sounddevices.com.
