While it might seem like a no-brainer when dealing with radio frequency technology, absolutely do not use metal/foil labels to identify your Turning Technologies ResponseCards or ResponseCard Receivers. The effective range of your system will be greatly reduced and you might not receive responses submitted.
Back in the early days RF audience response, circa 2006, I worked for a company that used these foil labels on their equipment, including their audience response systems. Most of the work that we did back then was in the 10 – 20 person advisory board setting. Since these kinds of events are held in boardrooms or small meeting spaces and the receiver was always within 30 – 50ft. of the most distant responder, we never new the time bomb that we had on our hands. In the fall of 2007, we were working a symposia in Chicago that had about 400 attendees. When the keypads were tested, they were all right next to show computer. Everything seemed to be working just fine. As the show started and first few questions were polled everything still seemed fine. The first indication that anything was wrong came during a lull in the voting action when I decided to check how many people were included in the votes that we collected. I was really confused by the results that I saw. There was only about a 25% response rate. I had no idea what was going on. I knew that all of the ResponseCards were setup properly and on the right channel since I tested them myself.
The next week I worked hand-in-hand with the support team at Turning Technologies to try to figure out what was happening. Here’s what we found:
- A foil sticker on the ResponseCard reduced the transmission range by roughly 40 ft.
- A foil sticker on the receiver had a greater effect than one on the ResponseCard. The range from which a response can received is less 60% than the rated range of 200 ft.
- A sticker on both the ResponseCard and the receiver knocked the range to less than 50ft.
I don’t have any experience with foil stickers and other audience response systems but to be on the safe side, just use paper labels. They may occasionally need to be replaced, but you can be sure that all votes will be collected.
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