For those who remember the scene in “Forrest Gump” when Forrest is at the Capital in Washington DC and unexpectedly finds himself hurried to a podium to address thousands of people. In that wonderful motion picture by Bob Zemmeckis (a genius among film producers and directors, who I had the honor of meeting along with Jodie Foster at the filming of the movie CONTACT at NASA), an anti-speech advocate unplugs the microphone and temporarily disables the audio system through which Forrest was busy sharing his viewpoint to the crowd about Vietnam. 90% of his speech was not heard. The crowd murmurs because they can’t hear Forrest speaking. While that example of poor audio was caused intentionally by the anti-speech advocate, similar failures of the crowd not hearing the person talking were happening on a regular basis in the 70’s despite the best intentions of the event organizers. Of particular problem to church-goers, Clint noticed, were preachers who oftentimes wandered away from their podium microphone during a period of excitement or emphasis in their sermon leaving much of the congregation trying in vain to hear that part of the message. Some preachers, aware of this problem, resorted to holding the microphone in their hands as they delivered their sermon, but quickly discovered that the cord presented a tripping hazard as they moved around the stage area. All too often, preachers would relax their arms allowing the microphone to drop down to their stomach level, rendering the microphone virtually useless and the congratulation again trying in vain to hear.
Some preachers tried lapel microphones clipped to their garment at a fixed point, nearby their mouth. This worked pretty well for preachers and lecturers who were content to remain in a fixed location on the stage, however, for those who enjoyed moving around a bit during their talk, the cord once again proved to be a trip hazard. Preachers using the lapel microphone, almost always disliked the cord dragging behind them, not only from a safety standpoint, but also from an aesthetics standpoint too. A long cord dangling out of the preachers garment and dragging behind resembled a ‘long mouse tail’ dragging the ground. In the late 70’s, Clint noticed that a few preachers, usually television based ministries with large budgets, began experimenting with wireless microphones which consisted of a microphone/radio transmitter unit broadcasting a radio signal to a nearby radio receiver. The receiver was plugged into an standard audio amplifier and speaker system. In theory, a beautiful arrangement. However, in practice, it was soon realized the technology of the wireless microphones of the 70’s were riddled with limitations and performance problems. One problem was the operating range, or distance, allowable between the microphone/transmitter unit and the matching receiver. Some units were limited to 50 feet, not very compatible for the larger arenas and convention centers and church buildings most likely to utilize such a device. This necessitated, at least in many locations, that the matching receiver be located somewhere on-stage, rather than in the sound booth, usually located toward the back of the buildings.