I told you it was a newbie question! I think it might indeed be that I didn’t know I had to turn phantom power on. We’ll test it today and see.
You mention that it’s not really a great combination in the first place. Would the next step to a better setup be a field mixer or something like that? I need to make a list to give to my boss on the next budget go-around. The application is sound on interviews/sound bytes at events we’re covering for internal news items, things like that. We usually have a 2-person crew, so we need to stay relatively minimal.