Pictures of my Shack and other Hams working in Audio
Shack Photos
Photos of Other Hams
 
Transceiver Setup
Icom 
Kenwood
Yaesu

Setting up Audio Gear
DEQ 2496
Murf Box
Setup for HamAlyzer
Connecting it all together
EQ Behringer 1100/1124
Recording

Where to get Audio Equipment
Commercial Links
Ham Links

Help with Audio Related Problems
Grounding and RFI
Questions answered #1
Questions answered #2
Questions answered #3  

How to fix DSP-100 problems (NEW) in Questions answered #3

Why Quality Audio?

I started in amateur radio way back in 1958. Everything for me was CW in those days and the only time I heard phone was of course when I tuned to the part of the band where I was not allowed to operate and listen to the boys doing AM. I would occasionally go to one of my many Elmer’s in those days and listen to them talk on the phone bands most of the time they were involved in traffic nets. But still I sit there and listen with amazement and wonder looking forward to the day I could have one of those fancy D-104 Lolly-Pop microphones of my own. Then as I remember it along about 1960 or so we started to hear a phone mode called SSB. Boy did that sound like Donald Duck was at the mic. Most of the old timers laughed and said they would never go to that mode and sound funny like that. Well I went away to college about that time and by the time I got back on the air; everyone was sounding like Donald Duke and liking it.

 Things have progressed and transmitter and receiver technology have made great strides. The SSB audio is still not up to the quality that the old AM was, but there is no carrier and over all SSB is pretty well accepted as the standard phone mode today.

 Now asking what SSB audio sounds like and what it should sound like should be and easy question to answer, but it isn’t. What one operator likes is not necessarily what another will think is pleasing and proper. The same type of SSB audio may or may not be the best for all conditions and experiences in amateur radio. We have contesting, DXing, rag chewing, traffic handling, emergency communications and other activities that require SSB audio. I am not sure that we should not employee different SSB audio for different conditions and activities. I am not sure one size fits all in SSB audio.

 I am working in a field of SSB audio that I call Enhanced Audio or EA. Some have called me and ESSBer or HI FI audio enthusiast, but I am not. ESSB stands for EXTENDED Single Side Band. Not Enhanced Single Side Band as some think it is. To qualify for the lowest rung of ESSB you must have a total bandwidth of at least 3Khz. That is to transmit from 0HZ to at least 3 KHz or 100Hz to 3.1 KHz or any bandwidth equivalent. And true ESSB goes way beyond that number up to and including 6 KHz wide for the best quality. I can do this mode, I have the equipment and very occasionally when the band I am on is mostly vacant, I will bring that equipment on board and operate until someone complains or I notice the band is getting crowded.

 If you are going to work in EA or quality audio, you have to come to an understanding in your mind about what quality audio is and is not. I have heard this phrase over and over and you probably have too. “I get great unsolicited audio reports all the time”.  Well what does that mean? Is the guy on the other end some kind of authority or expert? Is he measuring your audio on some form of test equipment? Does he have a very high quality receiver and antenna that can actually hear the great audio? How is he listening to the great audio, in head phones over a 2 inch speaker, or with an audio amplifier and studio monitor speakers? How does he have his receiver set up? Is he using narrow or wide filters? Is the noise blanker on and is he zero beat? To feel good about the great audio report, you have to be able to answer some if not all of these questions. Maybe, just maybe, the guy on the other end thinks you sound just like he does, so of course he has great audio, and so you. Maybe he does not want to embarrass you so he just says you have great audio, kind of tongue in cheek.  Maybe he is just trying to be friendly and have something to say. Maybe his audio is so poor that everyone sounds great to him. There are many reasons for the great audio report, and of course maybe you really do have great audio, but what is that?

 My definition is not simple or completely black or white. Great audio must change with the conditions and activities you are doing. I do not believe there is one audio, or universal audio that is great for all areas of amateur radio. For those who get so emotional and over blown and start screaming and interfering with an on going QSO because you do not like what they sound like, well all I can say is get a life and turn the VFO knob. ESSBers screaming at DXers and contesters, and DXers and contesters screaming at ESSBers or guys with what they would consider wider than normal audio is also not helpful. In my mind good conversational audio and I mean that type of audio you would use with your buddies in a round table chat on the bands should be as close to what you sound like if you were in the room with the person as possible. Limited background noise, with voice tones as close to a male if you are a male and like a female if that is what you are. Not like you do on the telephone that is not real.

 Now here is the question that I want to ask anyone reading this to send me mail and answer this question. I do not want to hear anything about extra wideness or IMD or anything else, because we are talking about the best world here where everything is working as it should and everything is setup correctly.

 If a typical male voice has meaningful audio levels down to 80 Hz, as most professional studies and universities have found, how can you duplicate the natural voice when you roll off everything below 400Hz? How can you duplicate the male voice when you artificially boost audio at around 2 KHz by means of the design of a particular line of microphones? I am talking hear about band conditions where most everyone in the group is 59 or better.

 I agree right of the top that it is hard to have long distance communications going if you do not employee these audio techniques. That is a given. But still in ideal conditions, whey is doing the above mentioned the correct way to duplicate the male voice realistically? Unless you can give me a better answer than anyone else has so far I will submit that it is best to start right off buying equipment and setting up your station so that you can faithfully reproduce your SSB audio voice as close to what you would sound like in your living room. Nothing better and nothing worse.

 Conversely, I will say here again as I have in other places on this page that guys who are intentionally boosting frequencies below 70, 60, 50, or lower in the audio spectrum are just as bad as the guys who boost the 2 KHz zone, cut their voices off at 400 Hz and run their rigs at a total band pass of 1.8 KHz or less. There is nothing down there in almost all voices but rumble and noise. It sounds boomy, mushy, and just plain bad. You are doing a disservice to those who are earnestly trying to have quality audio. It does not sound sexy, it does not sound good at all. Every professional working in amateur radio will tell you that those frequencies should be left to recording studios and they have no place in amateur radio. You are really causing IMD and guys adjacent to you do have a right to tell you so, you had better listen. I have guys send me EQs and I ask for them sometimes. I am amazed when I see boosts at those low frequencies. The guys who know what they are doing have cuts down there not boosts.

 I have heard many guys working contests and DX. Most sound reasonable but not conversational. They get through and work the DX. Many times the DX station sounds as bad as they do. But this is still no excuse to butcher your audio. You are still responsible for putting out clean understandable quality audio. I have worked every entity on the current DXCC list. I am at the top of the Honor Roll. I do not, and will not, butcher my audio just to get a new one. I may not use my best conversational audio setup, but I am not going to put all knobs to the right and sound awful just to work some new DX station.

 Back to the great audio reports again. What do they mean? They mean nothing. I have gotten them with narrow tin can audio, ESSB audio, what I call clicker or had mic audio, and just about every combination. I have had DX pileups stop while the operator tells me how great I sound. I have had latterly hundreds if not thousands of guys come by on 14.178 and tell me how wonderful I sound. It is nice to hear but it means very little. What really matters is when someone who I know, knows what they are doing comes in and tells me that I have to big a valley at 320 Hz or I am cracking on the top end or that I have too much background noise on my signal. I know they are giving good advice and are not just blowing smoke up my skirt like a lot the great audio reports are in fact.

 Ok there you have it, why have good audio? Now I will click my heals and go back over the rainbow to the land of OZ