[Elecraft] W2IHY 8 band equalizer and EQ Plus

[Tom W8JI]

Maybe I should have said "Before the input of the active
audio processing area in the DSP section of the radio".
That is, a way to control analog "dynamic range" at the
input of the RF Clipper section of the DSP audio chain>>>

We should not be clipping at RF anyway. RF clipping, or 
clipping an entire band, is an old method that should have 
been retired years ago.

<<What I was suggesting is an AGC funtion before the RF
Clipping section touches the audio waveform.  Something to
smooth out the dynamic range of the audio input so that the
DSP processing engine would not have to work so hard dealing
with peaks and valleys and can be "let loose" some.>>

The proper way to process speech is to split the speech into 
bands that are less than one octave wide. Then we clip and 
process each frequency band.
The output is filtered in a filter to clean it up, and the 
results are remixed in the ratio the user wants.

Take 300-500 and clip it, the closest harmonic is 600. 
Filter it at 300-500.
500-900 and clip it, the closest harmonic is 1000. Filter it 
at 500-900.
900-1700 and clip it, the closest harmonic is 1800. Filter 
it at 900-1700.
1700-3300 and clip. Filter it at 1700-3300.

In a DSP algorithm this idea would be fantastic, instead of 
emulating something that was never that good to start with.

Vomax did something like this in the 70's when op-amps first 
came out. I had a homebrew system with slow input AGC, 
gating, and split processing.

Why turn back the clock to a compressor preceding an RF 
processor? Contest stations already waste too much energy in 
distortion and by transmitting useless frequencies.

73 Tom