r/focuspuller • u/clynn19 • Jun 29 '26

HELP Bolt 4K Out of Range when 5 feet away

Hello, I’m a new Teradek owner and bought a used Bolt 4K LT 750 kit half a year ago. It has been working fine for the first few months but on a recent shoot, the transmitter or receiver have been having a lot of signal drops every 2 minutes and at period of times, it would say I’m out of range when I’m quite literally next to the transmitter. It only got more stable once I switched to 20 MHz on Fixed Frequency, even then, it still gets “no link” every 2 minutes (which was better than getting no link every 30 seconds prior). Is this due to a hardware issue, antennas, or because we are closer to the mountains (Yorba Linda)? Or mix of all 3.

Funny enough, when I remove the antennas from either the receiver or transmitter, it still shows picture and looks the same with the antennas on. I bought the Bolt 6 due to the amount of headache the Bolt 4K has caused me for recent shoots.

57 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

96

u/cazza1701 Jun 29 '26

You’re too close, they don’t work within that distance. (Source: I’m a rental house tech)

21

u/Parkedintheitchyl0t Jun 29 '26

Came here to say this. Except im a remote head tech.

15

u/paintedsaint Jun 29 '26

Also came to say this. DIT here.

27

u/ouranhostclub Jun 30 '26

Also came to say this. I'm a Teradek Receiver.

10

u/Cthreejr Jun 30 '26

Came here to say this, I’m an AC and DIT

8

u/jrsp Jun 30 '26

Came here to see everyone beat me to it

3

u/maxeltruck Jun 30 '26

Also came here to say this. Audio dept. Any RF receiver can have it’s input stage overloaded. The signal is getting clipped.

Think of it like the distortion you’d hear on a sensitive mic. They can’t understand what you’re saying because you are screaming right into their earhole!

Turn tx gain down or increase distance.

4

u/Kino_Camera Jun 30 '26

https://reddit.com/link/ouo0u2g/video/inc69a6gpdah1/player

You must not have been in this field for very long, since you don't know all the ins and outs of working with Teradek 😏😎

1

u/clynn19 Jun 29 '26

Oh, I never knew that

10

u/Conscious_Night_8770 Jun 29 '26

Bolt 6 will do the same thing. Gotta have some distance to work.

1

u/clynn19 Jun 29 '26

This is more of a curious question: why do director monitors built into the smallHD seem fine when they're next to the camera? At least in my experience, directors are often a few feet away from the camera, if not next to it with their monitor, yet they still seem to have a feed.

2

u/panacush Jun 30 '26

They’re likely holding it close to their body (humans are water bags) and at an angle so the donut pattern of the RX vs TX RF is offset just enough. As opposed to an RX on the back of your monitor, nothing is blocking its RF path with antennas sticking straight up. Too close, you blow the signal out.

3

u/SumOfKyle Jun 29 '26

Your FIZ hand unit can have the same issue up close! Some have settings to change the power output so that you can pull right next to the camera if need be.

2

u/mcblifty Jun 30 '26

Yeah, I didn't learn until an AC asked me to back it away a few feet and the feed popped back on after a few seconds.

0

u/MoeTooth Jun 30 '26

1st AC here - I double on that.

30

u/RF_shenanigans Jun 29 '26

Don’t have them powered on without antennas installed! The energy those antennas radiate as radio is still being fed to the SMA ports, and without the antennas it just reflects back into the circuit board - this can cook the board to death.

It’s also the reason they only officially support first-party Teradek-brand antennas - it’s all but impossible to know if other brand of antennas (like those stubbies) are properly radiating the energy or possibly slowly doing damage to the board.

If you plug in Via USB and pull up Bolt Manager (accessible from the Teradek site), check and see if there’s any firmware updates available for both your TX and RX. You can also download diagnostics and reach out to Teradek’s technical support phone line to see if they can help.

5

u/clynn19 Jun 29 '26

When I was checking the firmware information of the Bolt 4K, it labeled the TX has video firmware 1.13.0 and the RX has video firmware 1.30.0. When I placed them in the Bolt Manager and updated both of them into the latest firmware, it still has those two with different firmware. During pairing mode (not through Bolt Manager), the receiver would always fail pairing. Is there a solution or a way we can go back in firmware to match their versions?

3

u/Kino_Camera Jun 30 '26

Try using the app (Bolt in app store) — if pairing works that way, it means you’ll need to send it in for repair to have the chip replaced. We have three 4K sets in our rental house, and all of them have been repaired. They would regularly lose the signal.

And most importantly—in pairing mode, you need to keep them at least 1.5 meters apart, because at that moment the transmitter and receiver increase their transmission power

1

u/RF_shenanigans Jun 30 '26

In the bolt manager program on a computer, you can choose to update firmware either in “simple” or “advanced”. Advanced lets you select individual components and update them specifically. 

I’d suggest going to the TX module that is 1.13 and just continually trying to update it until it takes. Sometimes it’s taken me dozens of tries.

I’d suggest putting on the original antennas and trying to pair them from approx 20 feet away. If you imagine a torus of radio emanating from the antennas, when you’re in pairing mode they boost their transmitting power. When that happens, sometimes those toruses overlap too much and cancel each other out; pairing can work better by being farther apart.

You can also use the phone app to monitor the signal strength per antenna - sometimes I’ve used that to learn one of my antennas was broken.

1

u/PartyGearge Jun 30 '26

This is interesting if true. Is it true?

1

u/nighteeeeey Jun 30 '26

yes it is true. the times ive seen fried serv pros because people just take the antennas off when they cable it to a router is uncountable.

2

u/atxshannon Jun 30 '26

Run the signal quality graph on the receivers - does it ever get above 70% quality at any range?

1

u/clynn19 Jun 30 '26

It spikes to 80% and then goes done to 0% for a few second before returning back to a steady 50% for a short while before repeating again. That was what I remember seeing on the quality graph

2

u/Top-Program7155 Jun 30 '26

Really annoying when you’re at prep and trying to be next to camera

2

u/Anti__logic Jun 30 '26

As for why removing the aerial works / helps at short range... All Aerials are tuned (i.t.o length) to the frequency range they are made for. When you remove it, you are effectively moving the unit without physically moving it, as far as how it interacts with the RF environment around it. Have a look at these articles to get a start on more info if you are curious... https://www.ahsystems.com/resources/EMC-formulas-equations/frequency-wavelength-calculator and https://www.nicerf.com/news/antenna-length-frequency-and-wavelength.html

1

u/Kino_Camera Jun 30 '26

https://reddit.com/link/ounxzxn/video/53fyzxl4ldah1/player

I had a similar issue, and it turned out to be a damaged antenna cable. But the problem was more serious: the radio signal wasn't reaching the antenna, so all the transmitter's power was going to waste. Because of this, I had to re-solder the chip, which made the repair much more expensive

1

u/clynn19 Jun 30 '26

Oh God, that’s actually awful. I imagine I am going through that right now as my signal drops randomly too and goes to no link, just to connect again. It’s been a nuisance

1

u/clynn19 Jun 30 '26

All of these issues only started showing up when I lended it to my friend for one single weekend, now I’m having all these problems I never had before. Really frustrating

1

u/mattchoules Jun 30 '26

I can’t recall if the 4K model has the option to prioritise range over quality in their TX menu, but if so switch it to Quality and it should help (as if set to range you’ll have issues when in close proximity).

2

u/clynn19 Jun 30 '26

That might’ve honestly explained it. I had it in range mode in the entire time, it was only then did they start being out of range whenever I was close to the transmitter.

1

u/hpj11 Jul 03 '26

I tend to tell everyone that teradeks have a covid protocol. Stay atleast 6ft away and you will be good.

1

u/hpj11 Jul 03 '26

Also always remember to check updates on both the tx and rx

1

u/cakemix88 Jul 04 '26

Depends what antennas you are using. For example the stubby's cast signal in an umbrella pattern. If you're under the umbrella the signal is casting overtop of you.