[Elecraft] K3: Voice pitch adjustment on SSB

[Brett Howard]

That only works if everyone has an accurately calibrated frequency
reference.  Even if you have calibrated things its only as good as your
reference is to begin with.


On Thu, 2008-08-14 at 16:52 -0700, W6NEK wrote:
> Hi Oliver,
> How about the NET meets on a specific frequency and everyone tunes to that 
> specific frequency.
> 
> That will work too,
> Frank - W6NEK
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "O. Johns" <ojohns at metacosmos.org>
> To: <Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 4:41 PM
> Subject: [Elecraft] K3: Voice pitch adjustment on SSB
> 
> 
> > Folks,
> >
> > I read the web pages about ESSB, after seeing on the reflector that  the 
> > K3 now supports it.  It struck me that even ESSB doesn't solve one  big 
> > issue with voice transmission: PITCH.  Tuning the SSB receiver  changes 
> > the overall pitch of the received voice.  Unless you have met  the sending 
> > ham or at least talked to him/her on the phone (or on  AM!!), you have no 
> > real idea how high- or low-pitched the voice really  is.  One can only 
> > guess, and get a sort of feel for what a reasonable  tuning is.
> >
> > One way to solve this may seem a joke, but it isn't.  Everyone should  buy 
> > a little 440 Hz pitch pipe, the kind used to tune musical  instruments. 
> > Then, say, the net control could blow his pitch pipe at  the start of the 
> > net and all the listeners could blow their little  pitch pipes while 
> > listening to net control.  They would all then  adjust their receiver 
> > tunings until the pitches matched.  Like a  shortwave orchestra tuning up. 
> > (Of course, this might violate the FCC  rule against music on ham radio, 
> > but maybe not if the pitch pipe was  near a pure sine wave.  Then the 
> > signal transmitted by net control  would be just an ordinary CW signal, 
> > but at 440 Hz from the net  control's suppressed carrier.)
> >
> > A refinement would be to build a pure 440 Hz tone generator into the 
> > microphone preamps of radios.  Net control pushes a button while 
> > transmitting and it goes out over the air.  The net members push  another 
> > button while receiving to produce a 440 Hz tone in their  speakers along 
> > with the received signal from net control.  Then the  receiving operators 
> > adjust their receiver tuning until the pitches  coincide.  For the tone 
> > challenged among us, the receiver tuning could  even be automated, much 
> > like the K3 already does for sidetone on CW.
> >
> > This scheme came to me when I was adjusting the audio parameters on my 
> > K2.  I had the K2 running into a dummy load, and was listening to it  on 
> > headphones plugged into a TenTec RX320D across the room.  Since the  K2 
> > was on a dummy load, I tried whistling and was surprised and  pleased to 
> > find that the PITCH of my whistle didn't match the one I  was hearing on 
> > the phones.  But I could adjust the RX320D tuning until  they did match. 
> > Guarantee of zero beat and realistic pitch in voice  reception.
> >
> > Doesn't seem that this would be too hard to do.  Maybe the K3 could  even 
> > do it in firmware?
> >
> > 73,
> > Oliver Johns W6ODJ 
> 
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