[Elecraft] Rotten Signals

[GRANT YOUNGMAN]

Part of the problem, I think, is that people have simply forgotten how to monitor their own signal, or never bothered to learn how.  It doesn’t matter if you’re using the latest DSP wizbang SSB radio or a Central Electronics 10A to transmit.  Listening to yourself on an IF level “audio” monitor, won’t tell you if you’re overdriving and flat topping in the amp.  Not likely that a P3 monitor function — if it only displays signals from the K3 DSP — will help much in that regard either.  Compression and processing don’t necessarily cause a wide signal — but of course since the knob is there, if a little bit is good, then a whole lot MUST BE better .. or at least that’s clearly the view of many.

Every station needs a scope, and the only way to guarantee a clean signal (even if the K3 or radio du jour is generating a perfectly clean one in it’s DSP) is to use it properly to evaluate the RF going into the antenna, after the very last stage of that extra special 10KW contest amp … 

Grant NQ5T


On Apr 10, 2014, at 12:09 AM, Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:

> On 4/9/2014 6:56 PM, Milverton M. Swire wrote:
>> all the over active ALC, sprinkled with copious amount of Compression and marinated with an excessive amount of mic gain on any given contest weekend?
> 
> I put about 24 hours into WPX SSB a week or so ago, and the number of AWFUL signals nearly outnumbered the number of clean ones. At least two dozen times, I had to tell callers their audio was so bad that I couldn't copy them. In every case, mic gain was turned up FAR, FAR too high, and so was compression. There were dozens of stations calling CQ with audio so bad that I couldn't copy their calls, let alone try to make an exchange.
> 
> This is PURELY a matter of STUPIDITY on the part of the operator (and perhaps an unsportsmanly intent to produce splatter to keep other stations away from their sidebands), and there's no excuse for it. Most modern rigs have a monitor function lets the operator listen to his transmitted audio, and I'd bet that many of those who sound the worst have another rig that the COULD use to listen to their own RF signal.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC