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PLEASE!!! STOP YELLING INTO THE MIKE!!!!

C

C W Morse

Active Member
Apr 3, 2005
1,022
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48
Retired
:D I wanted to post this because of something I am hearing on the local FM repeaters. Don't think I am scolding; I am not. But this "LOUD 'N PROUD, all controls to the right is invading the Amateur ranks and shows a complete lack of understanding of how to use a mike and, more so, the characteristics of FM transmission. I am hear a lot of new hams who are literally SCREAMING into the microphone on the repeater(s) to the point of almost going outside the bandpass of the machine and causing words to "skip" or drop out. They are muffled and hard to understand and I sometimes just turn the thing OFF rather than to listen to it!

First of all, YELLING into the mike will not make your signal louder (or prouder). It makes you sound simply AWFUL and
does nothing to make your audio "better". FM transmission simply does not respond to "modulation" and, indeed, is referred as "deviation" as the FREQUENCY deviates while the AMPLITUDE of the spoken word, etc remains constant. That's why it is called FREQUENCY MODULATION, fer heaven's sake! :p All screaming and yelling into the mike does is cause muffling and missed words and popping into and out of the machine! And I am hearing more than a few new hams who are simply swallowing the mike (?) and screaming their heads off!!!!! STOP IT! LOL! Speak in a NORMAL tone of voice! In fact, you will be heard (as well as understood) much better if you WHISPERED than if you scream as if somebody was standing on your foot!

Also, don't speak right into the mike, but ACROSS it! This will avoid "whuffing" the mike and the heavy breathing sounds that often annoy the dickens out of your listeners!

I hope this is info you can use and it is not something that will people will take as negative criticism! It is posted to help you, not hurt. And I'll bet there are other people that find yelling, mike 'whuffing" and panting into the mike objectionable, too! Use this info to make your amateur transmissions more enjoyable for all! :D


73

CWM
 

Well I have to agree 100% with Jerry on this one folks. Many times I have heard a ham,often a newbie but not always,speaking way too loud into the mic complete with breath sounds etc.Sometimes it IS outside the passband of one repeater we have here that is quite tight on the frontend filters and it does drop out on some syllables.Very annoying.Another thing also,please leave the power microphones somewhere other than on FM gear.Definately NOT needed there and actually they are not needed anyway except for perhaps an old vintage piece of ham gear that needs high level audio to modulate the thing.
 
Yeah, we got some philipinos that absolutely rule a couple of the repeaters around here...way overmodulated I just can't stand to listen to it, and I simply don't know how they can stand it themselves. They speak strictly tagalog...

I thought about trying to bust in a couple of times, but heck, there were no pauses in their chatter. Might have just been my ears ringing though.
 
Some of it can be blamed on the newer rigs too.

My Yaesu 857D and even worse the Icom 706, when in FM their mic gain is wildly different than if you use them for SSB or AM.

I have to run mic gain of 12 with the stock Yaesu mic for FM or I talk right out of the squelch circuit of the local repeater with a normal speaking voice. The Icom 706 needs to be at 3..and that's out of 100 for both I believe.

For SSB I have to run it at 100 and even with a bit of processor to get the radio to near full out put on voice peaks. It's a drastic difference and I only found out because someone took the time to tell me that I sounded like a trucker on the repeater. I always got fantastic audio reports on SSB so I didn't even realize the problem.

The local repeater has the circuit so narrow that long before you sound like robo-trucker, you'll simply disappear. Nobody will even hear you until you back down...which causes plenty of confusion on its own.
 
SR385 said:
Some of it can be blamed on the newer rigs too.

My Yaesu 857D and even worse the Icom 706, when in FM their mic gain is wildly different than if you use them for SSB or AM.

I have to run mic gain of 12 with the stock Yaesu mic for FM or I talk right out of the squelch circuit of the local repeater with a normal speaking voice. The Icom 706 needs to be at 3..and that's out of 100 for both I believe.

For SSB I have to run it at 100 and even with a bit of processor to get the radio to near full out put on voice peaks. It's a drastic difference and I only found out because someone took the time to tell me that I sounded like a trucker on the repeater. I always got fantastic audio reports on SSB so I didn't even realize the problem.

The local repeater has the circuit so narrow that long before you sound like robo-trucker, you'll simply disappear. Nobody will even hear you until you back down...which causes plenty of confusion on its own.
Click to expand...

You have to run at 12 on FM and 100 on SSB ? :? Something's not right.Remember that the meter will not show true peaks on SSB unless it requires a power source for something besides the panel light. 99.9% of the meters that claim they measure peak power do not.I have a Yaesu FT-857 and my settings are FM=25,AM=30, and SSB=30.No processor involved.I do however talk very close to the mic but I don't holler into it.I know everyone's voice is differant but you should see all the settings fairly close to one another.I checked mine out using my Wavetek 4101 AM/FM modulation monitor as well as on air reports from my former co-worker in the broadcast business who knows my voice well.Dave used to a producer/mixer for the CBC for years until we worked together in private radio.Dave has forgotten more than I will ever know about audio and RF systems.The Wavetek mod monitor BTW is not a simple little mod meter.It is a $1000+ lab instrument for working on all sorts of transmitters running AM or FM from +/-0.1KHz deviation all the way up to +/- 100KHz. With the great variance in settings that you have, I still think something is not set quite right and I suspect it my be the SSB setting.Just how much ALC do you see on SSB? I'll bet you see a lot of little bars with that setting.
 
QRN;

Yeah I suspect my radio might be out of alignment. The test procedure for that involves test points so tiny I have to solder leads onto them...and you know how tight that board is. I figured if it works well enough I'd leave it alone rather than risk burning or bridging a trace.

I'm not the only one with the issues though, it's fairly common on the user group for the 857 to have the same sort of situation.

I also had pretty consistently lousy audio reports with the stock mic, particularly bad on FM so I switched to an Astatic D104M6 and it's no problems now. It may have been a combination of the mic and the rig in my case. I run the Astatic mic itself on 2, barely on and now the rig gets set to 25 for FM with great results.

I do have ALC indicated (about 1/3 of the scale), but the rig doesn't put out without it. If I ran my rig on SSB with very little ALC, it would be doing 30W. I have to run the mic at 100 and proc at 15-20 to get it to properly peak on voice peaks.
 
What are you using for a meter to measure the power output? I ask this because even my Diamond SX-1000 on "peak" mode does not show 100 watts output but my oscilloscope does.Like I mentioned above,99.9% of the meters out there will not show a true peak output.They just do not respond fast enough without an active (powered) sampling circuit.

BTW I know what you mean about the alignment.I did the bias alignment on my rig and it really is tiny in there on that board.I noticed a bit of an improvement especially on AM and a bit on SSB.The factory bias levels were way off.My rig was one of the first made however. I bought it about two months after they hit the market. The "D" models are supposed to have that problem solved.
 
QRN said:
What are you using for a meter to measure the power output?
Click to expand...

Just looking at the built in meter. Mine is somewhat permanently installed in a mobile and I haven't found my Daiwa meter around the house yet to stick it in line. The only other power meter I have is in my Palstar tuner in the house and I'm just too lazy to drag that sucker out and jumper it in.

You know how the peak reading comes up with the long flat bar and the '+' ? I basically can't hit that level with the meter in modulation or on power no matter what I do with the rig settings. I've never been sure if that is normal or not.

When I guestimated 30W it was just an eyeball on the built in meter.
 
Ahhhh....I see. I stand by my original guess.I'll bet you will agree with me after you put a REAL peak reading meter on the radio.I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all. :roll: I'm just from the "been-there-done-that" crowd. ;)
 
Yeah, no problem.

I need to get another meter, just paid a bag of cash for the Daiwa that I know is around here somewhere...was trying to avoid buying a new one as I generally really don't care exactly what my power out is, just that I'm getting out.
 
QRN was totally right here.... I didn't understand ALC indications properly and things are much better now.

My mic gain settings after the below linked thread are much more even between modes now.

http://forum.worldwidedx.com/viewtopic.php?p=119169

Here I was giving audio quality advice and I had something totally inside-out with my own setup...oddly enough it didn't effect the audio enough for anyone to have noticed it and told me in my situation.
 
SR385 said:
QRN was totally right here.... I didn't understand ALC indications properly and things are much better now.

My mic gain settings after the below linked thread are much more even between modes now.

http://forum.worldwidedx.com/viewtopic.php?p=119169

Here I was giving audio quality advice and I had something totally inside-out with my own setup...oddly enough it didn't effect the audio enough for anyone to have noticed it and told me in my situation.
Click to expand...

It's not about having a problem in your own house,it's about listening and learning even when you think you're right to begin with. ;) Glad things worked out for you.
 

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