Alex Haralson heads up Sono Locus, a leading location sound company in Knoxville, a city that looms large in cable and reality TV due in part to the legacy of Scripps, the once-parent company of such channels as HGTV, Food Network and The Travel Channel. This year, Knoxville earned sixth place in the USA on Moviemaker magazine’s list of best places to live and work in production. His recent work includes the competition series Master Distiller and films Secret City and A Hard Problem. From high-profile productions such as these to a never-ending flow of documentaries, commercial and corporate work, he explains how he has trusted his wireless needs to Lectrosonics for over 25 years.
In particular, SRc and DCR822 receivers accompanied by SMDWB and HMa transmitters, plus SMV and SMQV transmitters feeding R1b body packs for communications.
“When I rebuilt my system a few years ago, I landed on the SRc in particular because for a lot of the projects I was working on, my gear had to be compatible with other mixers’ packages and other wireless gear manufacturers,” Haralson explains. “I knew that on the road, I would run into Lectrosonics more often than not.”
Haralson’s relationship with Lectrosonics far predates the SRc, however. “When I got my first job for Gannett at the local NBC affiliate, the wireless setups in the studio were Lectrosonics,” he recalls. “For anyone who had to move around the studio, we had the UCR211 [receivers]. When I moved over to Scripps, each field package had a couple of Lectro UHF packages with an older VHF system as a backup. So yeah, I’ve been with them a while!”
Between radio carrier frequencies being directional by nature and the surprises reality TV can throw at any production, Haralson is grateful for Lectrosonics’ reception and range.
“I worked on a barbecue show a couple of years ago,” he says. “Sometimes we would be set up on this large field and one of the pitmasters would be clear on the other side. We’d pop an antenna mast up and depending on how far away they were, up the transmitter to 100 milliwatts output. We got great range and coverage.”