Last night around 0000 hours I was able to scratch up a QSO on sideband with a local who is about 20 miles away. We talked for a couple hours (yes, the band was dead here) which gave me plenty of chance to get the feel of the ClrDsp processor. It works! It really cleaned up the background/floor noise and allowed me to copy the local much better than without it.
My usual noise floor at night is S6/S7 forcing me to back the RF gain down 1/3, with the ClrDsp in the chain I could turn the gain to full and still have comfortable listening and a much clearer copy on the voice. Turning the Hi-Cut filter and ANL off on the radio actually improved the sound, leaving the Noise Blanker on removed the swirly water sound. Best settings for me on the Dsp were Filter and Tone @ 10 o'clock, output from the radio (volume) set to 4 (scale of 1to36). Turning the radio volume higher just resulted in more clipping, am using the Dsp volume pot to control speaker output. I experienced no delays in filtering after unkeying but I do get some noticeable pops when keying/unkeying.
Hopefully there will be some SSBDX today to see how much it will improve those DX signals stuck in the mud (like me).
Of course YMMV, but it seems like a decent buy if you're having noise issues. All in all the unit feels/seems well built with quality feeling controls and connection cables (as it should for two C notes). Pots are smooth and stay where you leave them. Not the ChiCom crap typical today. Longevity will tell the tale I guess.
I have to give kudos to Ham Radio Outlet for having it on sale and for the 2 day USPS free shipping from Anaheim.
The biggest credit goes to WMR sales rep SLOWMOVER who sold me on the product through many, many, many, many posts on this site.
Many.
73
