Output from Qu-Pac to AM Transmitter

[RobertParticipant]

I inherited a Qu-Pac mixer from an installation that occurred prior to my being hired and I am a newbie at working with digital mixers so I’m just not sure where to go with this. I need to transmit radio for drive-in church services due to the virus. I have a Talking House TH5 AM transmitter and need to run audio from a Qu-Pac mixer to the transmitter.

There is an RCA cable coming from behind the mixer and it is adapted down to what looks like a 1/8″ headphone plug. I can’t get to the back of the mixer to see where it is plugged in but I am working on that. I have tried hooking the cable to the input on the transmitter and didn’t get audio out of the transmitter. It seems to be transmitting fine because it can transmit from an internal pre-recorded message and I am able to hear that on a radio receiver. I also tried recording to a macbook pro and didn’t get audio there either despite using an adapter cable to split the mic and headphone portions of the headset plug on the macbook. I’m wondering if there is something I have to do to configure the audio to come out of the output I’m plugged in to. What is the normal way of doing something like this? Is there something I should be doing that would be better than the cable / output I am using?

Thanks so much for any help and please forgive me for being such a newbie.

Here is what the manual says to plug in to the input of the transmitter: “line-level signal (.1V to .5V, unbalanced) into the “LINE INPUT” (1/8” mini phone)”
Manual for the transmitter: https://www.talkinghouse.com/pdfs/talking-house-i-am-radio-instruction-manual.pdf

[PeterParticipant]

Hi
Ok I don’t have one if your mixers but it seems from your post that you are making a big presumption about this cable being an output at all.
Try plugging the cable you are hoping is an output onto say your Mac headphone output and malting some audio from the Mac at Mac volume
If you see this audio on any mixer input / meter then that cable is indeed going to a desk input, so no good.
Personally I’d think it unlikely that a mini jack cable would be an output?!?

You really need to get access to the rear!
Peter

[Mike CParticipant]

Like Peter said WAY too many unknowns.

You need to first see what the cable is plugged into and then is the physical cable
is wired correctly to take a mixer output to an 1/8 trs mini plug to feed the transmitter.

After that you need to go through the mixer set up.
Is the QU PAC mounted in a rack that you can not get to the back of?

Right now I’m going to say using the ALT OUT would be the best way to do what you need,
but fist you need to some investigation.

As you dig into it post some pictures.

[RobertParticipant]

Sorry, I should have said I have tried playing audio through the cable from my mac, and recording audio to my mac through the cable. I am pretty sure it’s not working as an output or input. I agree, I really need to get access to the back of the board but I’m just looking for guidance on what to do if the cable is plugged in to an output to run through a setup to make it work.

[RobertParticipant]

No, sorry can’t get to the back of it. It’s mounted in a wood box, not cool. I am going to remove it but I need a drill since the screws are screwed into solid wood, so I’ll need to go back Monday. I was thinking ALT OUT as well. Could you give me some help finding information on how to troubleshoot the ALT OUT or set it up to output properly? A lot of people have told me to go through the mixer setup and I don’t even know what that means (as far as what to look for and what any of it means). I’ve looked at manuals and it is a bit hard searching for the right info without learning everything there is to know about it. My problem with that is, I need this to work this week. 🙂

[Mike CParticipant]

No, sorry can’t get to the back of it. It’s mounted in a wood box, not cool. I am going to remove it but I need a drill since the screws are screwed into solid wood, so I’ll need to go back Monday. I was thinking ALT OUT as well. Could you give me some help finding information on how to troubleshoot the ALT OUT or set it up to output properly? A lot of people have told me to go through the mixer setup and I don’t even know what that means (as far as what to look for and what any of it means). I’ve looked at manuals and it is a bit hard searching for the right info without learning everything there is to know about it. My problem with that is, I need this to work this week. 🙂

Lets say you get to the back of the mixer……
The ALT OUT will be the quickest way to get signal to the transmitter, the ALT out uses two 1/4 jacks.

You will need a cable that goes from two 1/4 inch TS mono plugs to a single 1/8 inch TRS stereo plug.

I just took a quick look at the manual for the transmitter, you will want to use the LINE input connection on the back of the transmitter.

You will want to double check that the ALT OUT is patched correctly, go into the IO set up menu, select surface, in the ALT OUT selection select the L R Pre selction, you can use the select knob to the lower right of the screen to scroll through the choices, yu need to touch one selection first, it will highlight in yellow.

On the front of the mixer up by the headphone jack is a larger knob labeled ALT OUT that is the master level for the ALT OUT output.

There are other ways to set up a separate mix to feed the transmitter using the ALT OUT
but the above is the fast simple way to at least start.

[RobertParticipant]

Exactly what I needed, thank you. Got it to work today with pretty good signal results.

[Mike CParticipant]

Exactly what I needed, thank you. Got it to work today with pretty good signal results.

Good to hear you got the system up and running.

[Author]

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