how do you guys mount your pocketwizard?

ive been mounting it under my camera using a tripod sized threading with a male end on both sides but pointing that antenna sideways doesnt seem to give me good transmission/reception​.

do you guys just mount it to your flash? must the antenna be pointed up as they state?

I'm gonna get me a couple of these: http://www.flashzebra.​com/0070.shtml

I think they will solve the placing issue with the PW's.

kaitanium wrote in post #6051008
ive been mounting it under my camera using a tripod sized threading with a male end on both sides but pointing that antenna sideways doesnt seem to give me good transmission/reception​.

do you guys just mount it to your flash? must the antenna be pointed up as they state?

As long as the antennas of both the Tx unit and the Rx unit are pointed in the same direction, it doesn't really matter whether they're up, down or sideways.

widowmaker wrote in post #6051383
I'm gonna get me a couple of these: http://www.flashzebra.​com/0070.shtml

I think they will solve the placing issue with the PW's.

The OP wasn't completely clear but I thought he was asking how others mount their PWs to their cameras, not their light stands.

As far as mounting to a light stand is concerned, here's my solution:

i guess im just having issues figuring out the best placement of PWs, the one on my lightstand just hangs by its lanyard so the antenna is up. the one on my camera has the antenna poinintng off to the right and im missing shots because of the flash not going off.

just trying to find the best placement or figure out how the darn thing transmits. i mean my gamecube controller can control from downstairs, my wireless home phone, i can talk if im standing upside down...why is PW so picky?

Are you using a hot shoe flash in tandem with the PW? Any reason why your not mounting the PW to the hotshoe?

yea got a flash on the hotshoe so i need to go with the pc port. maybe its the cable. im about to get a screwlock cable to see if that improves things any.

kaitanium wrote in post #6051744
i guess im just having issues figuring out the best placement of PWs, the one on my lightstand just hangs by its lanyard so the antenna is up. the one on my camera has the antenna poinintng off to the right and im missing shots because of the flash not going off.

just trying to find the best placement or figure out how the darn thing transmits. i mean my gamecube controller can control from downstairs, my wireless home phone, i can talk if im standing upside down...why is PW so picky?

90 degrees is the worst possible orientation you can have a transmitter and a receiver relative to each other. A sort of analogy is polarized sunglasses. Get two of them and place one in front of the other and at 90 degrees to each other. How well can you see through the glasses?

VHF and UHF signals can be very dependent on polarization, either vertical or horizontal, meaning if the transmitter antenna is horizontal the receiver should also be. I should think at the short distances we use with our PW's it wouldn't matter, but then these are weak signal transmissions. If the instructions say to be vertical I guess that is what is means. I mount my PW's to the flash shoe, so could but never have had a problem too.

Jack

mmm i never realized this about "polarization" of signals. this might help!

ive always though radio signals are radio signals and that as long as youre in range, it doesnt matter where your antenna is.

PacAce wrote in post #6051939
90 degrees is the worst possible orientation you can have a transmitter and a receiver relative to each other. A sort of analogy is polarized sunglasses. Get two of them and place one in front of the other and at 90 degrees to each other. How well can you see through the glasses?

I take back my previous thread. Turns out that the 90 degree orientation is not the worst orientation possible (but it is very poor). According to Pocket Wizard, the worst orientation is having the Tx and the Rx antennas pointed at each other.

PacAce wrote in post #6052105
I take back my previous thread. Turns out that the 90 degree orientation is not the worst orientation possible (but it is very poor). According to Pocket Wizard, the worst orientation is having the Tx and the Rx antennas pointed at each other.

Yes, pointing them at each other is very like "crossing the streams" on a proton pack.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Proton_pack

Enjoy! Lon

widowmaker wrote in post #6051383
I'm gonna get me a couple of these: http://www.flashzebra.​com/0070.shtml

I think they will solve the placing issue with the PW's.

+10000000

I have one for my PW and it works splendidly.

Just use the landyard that comes with it to mount to your lightstand, and when using it with a flash on-camera attach the landyard to the camera strap.

I bought the caddies linked above but with the PW Multimax they are a pain to use. If I wrap the bungee cord around the PW then the light stand its too tight, but if I just wrap the bungee around the lightstand i have to go around 2 or 3 times which is a pain. How are you all attaching the PW w/caddy to the lightstands, maybe Im just overlooking the obvious

It is easy enough to tie an extra knot in the elastic (before attaching the caddy to the PW) if you always use the caddy mounted to a small pole as opposed to a larger flash head. This will shorten the elastic

I even have drilled additional holes and provided a longer elastic for others who want to mount the PW to the flash side, as opposed to the flash head. Almost any orientation is possible if the additional holes and a second elastic is used.