No! Don't Sound Like This on SSB! 

1,000 apologies for pointing these people out. If they watch this, they'll know to tun their compressor down, maybe it was just incorrectly set that day. I had good intentions.

i think manufacturers should build radios with de-compressors for the italian market

Lord CALLUM, if we don't hear ourselves we would NOT notice. Thank you again for your time and experience. 👍🏼 73

"Again again " "again again" "yes 5 9" 😂 I find myself doing the same thing in a pile up.

We have a daily ARRL Section net on 75M and usually have between 75 and 100 check-ins. In that group are a few that could take your advice from this video. Some are very very good, most are fine but there are those few who range from pretty bad to "What did he say?". It's much harder to point out a needed correction than to give a good report most times. Thanks for another educational video. Oh and the net is on 3.862 LSB at 5:30pm CST daily. Jack K5FIT

Another good way to test your audio is call in to Callum's Friday live stream, then listen to yourself later.

I use that websdr trick all the time, amazing how much improvement there is in modern radios.

I've found a lot of transferable knowledge from music mixing tutorials. A lot of what they say is inapplicable, but I found them helpful for understanding the core function of the items in your audio chain and how to configure them properly.

Excellent advice as always callum ...

I've noticed on the waterfall that bad over compressed audio frequently comes with a signal that's 6+Khz wide too.

Growing up with CB since the 1970's and still using them as a truck driver, no one will ever tell you if your radio sounds bad...its always 'Yup, sounds good here", when they know its garbled or crap. If my radio has a problem, I want to know, otherwise I wouldn't be asking. Its so nice in the ham radio world other stations will actually give you real feedback, its refreshing!

Hi Callum, Maybe a word or two about the use of ALC too, I have my Kenwoods set to about 10 to 15% compression with no ALC overshoot.

Callum, you are SO UNIQUE!! You take the time to literally review EVERY single comment, and share your experiences and wisdom with each! I look for EVERY subject that you record, and kindly share with us, because not only are you VERY INTERESTING to listen to, your empathy and kindness is all there to appreciate as well!! God Bless, Callum!!...and I thank you for all the above!! 73's,... K6PAM

i think you have a very good valid point here callum. bit all the m7 callsigns near got a free italian passport. all i hear is holaa and this is on 145. 500mhz but for some reason they never give there callsign.

I use a IC 7300 and set my mic gain up 1/3 of the way and put compression (ALC level) on level 3. I get great great comments about excellent audio quality all the time. Then tweeked the audio filters in the rig for best results with my voice. Most hams can't be bothered to do this and it sounds like it!! The desk mic I'm using is a custom built station mic I built from the standard IC-7300 hand held mic element. I cannabilized from one I got at a ham fest. This mic element is a hot electret mic and puts out a lot of audio gain. If you are setting your ALC level up more than just visible (1/3 scale) on the meter it is way too much. I built the desk mic and deep set the element into the mic body in medium firmness foam rubber which helps eliminate more background and side noise, deadens the higher frequencies, and gives the mic a smoother sounding quality. It took some playing with to get it perfect but was worth the effort.

Great stuff 👍

Good to hear someone explain compression. I swear most people can't hear heavy compression, whether it be HF or just radio tv.

Its a benefit of Kenwood that other systems don't do. The 590s ts the best radio on the used market. I hope to get a dual vfo like yours but I'm retired and it's not likely in the cards till I sell my work tools. I've heard the extended SSB and that's wildly good.

Thanks Callum. I just got a new radio and I know when I first fired it up, it was awful. However, since this uses a PC for mic in, I had used one of my standby PCs with an unknown mic. Once I went to my other system with a quality USB microphone, the audio cleared right up. However, I still want to dial in my Audio.

I have some very bad antennas, but luckily the Icom IC-7300 can be set to have natural and strong modulation at the same time. What saves me is not the signal strength (no power and some sort of clothesline as antennas in my balcony) but the quality of the modulation itself. Kudos to Icom for that. 73 de IS0HNW Alex.

Excellent video Cal! Not done much music making of late, but the incorrect use of compressor in music (as you will know) totally destroys audio. I learned the hard way over a few years. My problems was using plugins and hardware - because I had them. I felt I needed to use everything I had (because I paid for it). Only later I realised that less is more. Cheers, Mark, 2E0MSR.

A great vid again Cal. Could this also come from overworking an amp too? Pushing it too much? I find that it is always good to pass on advice on items. How else do we learn what our signal sounds like? Someone has to change the QSO's from 5n9 to actually having a chat, 73 🙂 Use of the Web SDR is spot on too

The first thing i did when i bought my FT450D is tune a remote sdr and adjust my audio. Never thought about it, just second nature. My first rig was a set of SB 300 Heathkit twins with a scope, you always tuned the rig to peak and then tweaked it for perfect modulation.

I have a Kenwood TS-530SP and have done this test myself a few times, via websdr...such a powerful capability! Anyway...On this radio you it has a button to turn the processor on or off as well as a MIC gain knob and I so noticed this kind of distortion when the MIC gain was turned up so much that the ALC went past half-way on the ALC meter...even in the operating manual it tells you to only turn up the MIC gain until the needle approaches the end of the ALC range. Great video sir! 73

Greit video Cal. Many operators use average reading wattmeters and in some rigs the meter is averaging as well. My FTDX 1200 is an example and CB rigs as well. So if the operator need to see the needle peaking all the time even when catching breath , bad audio is the result. It may be from a crancked up powermic or comp all the way up. So on amateur HF rig the ALC is the best meter except if there is an overdriven stage before the comp. On my TS480 high comp IN is a bad idea as on most kenwoods with dual comp adjustment. On newer rigs it seems like they are tuned to work with full tone mics so on both my FTDX 1200 and IC7300 for my voice I had to lower low frequency gain and up with high frequency gain. This must be done seperate with comp on/off especially on yaesu radios. How much comp depends on mic and if you are the sort of operator that has to be stamped on to get a sound out ;-)

Great Info! Thanks You now got me wonder, how multi-pathing would sound like? Down an other rabbit whole I go lol

My Kenwood 850SAT gives a great audio indeed. With the MC90 mic, I only have to turn the 'proc' & mic gain just 1/4 to have enough readability. 73 PD0PSX

Neat topic. On my RS 918 I have compression set to almost off. I have been meaning to, once time is found, listen to myself on a webSDR. On the otherhand I was recently given, by a gal I know, a Behringer Autocom model MDX 1200 audio dynamics processor. This thing came from an East Village (NYC) night club sound system. It has a built in enhancer, compressor, limiter. I recently started playing around with the model 1200 by running audio from a USB mic into my computer, out thru the computer's front line level out jack to one of the two channels on the model 1200 which after processed ends up in a powered speaker. The jury is out here. Its a lot to add to the audio chain & until I actually hear my transmission my local audio testing is not really definitive. I suspect being a musician too gives you a better feel for whether I should even consider using the model 1200 in my rig's audio chain. Please feel free to add your thoughts, but right now I am leaning towards no.....

I run some rf compression on my hf transmitter. 10 db is fine. properly done its a help. the microphone/audio response is important also. on my kenwood ts-850 with the stock hand mike on ssb tx I run with the high boost on. with my voice its best that way. when I run am where the processor is not available. I sound better with the mike high boost off. as you say. most rigs work ok rite out of the box.yes, I have an electrovoice re-20 but the stock hand mike is just fine.

Hi Callum, this is how I set up my radios for myself, main HF radio ic-7300 with dummy load inline looking at the ALC meter I adjust my mic gain and compression level to keep it within range, on the 7300's ALC meter there's a solid red line I try not to go beyond this red line whilst talking, seems to work for me. Mic gain set at around 36% compression around 2 or 3

Good advice, Callum. Some hams should learn to use their ALC correctly. I use an IC-7300 with a hand mike, my TX audio is set at no more than 40% and my processor is only set to 2 (two), it does me well.

Great video Callum and right on point. I hear so many terrible sounding signals on the band and most of them sound bad from too much compression. Perhaps it may not be every hams fault. If you read the manual of the Icom radios for example, they recommend running anywhere from 10 to 15db of compression. In my opinion, this is way too much and sounds terrible. 15db of compression sounds like someone hollering in your face with a bullhorn. To make matters worse, many hams never check the ALC meter and are pinning the scale on every voice peak. Even without compression, you will sound awful peaking out of the ALC range and make people on nearby frequencies mad from your splatter. Keeping compression below 10 db sounds more natural and adds that little bit of extra "oomph" you need to boost average talk power. And whether the compressor is on or off, for heavens sake watch that ALC meter too! Many hams run average reading wattmeter's and think they need tons of compression because they don't see the needle slamming the corner on every voice peak, this sounds like crap on the air, use a good peak reading wattmeter! I can hit full power voice peaks on my Yaesu FTDX101 with the mike gain at 15% and no compression. The radios power meter shows it peaking much less because it's not peak reading.

Howdy. Good information. I am a 66 years geezer and my hearing has deteoriated. I haven't heard grasshoppers for tens of years. This is more for movie sound compression. Action movies today have so flippin' large dynamics. If I turn down the volume not to wake up my neighbours when cannons are fired I can't understand the mumble speaking. If I turn up the volume to make speaking intelligibile my neighbours start banging the walls when the battery starts firing. I found a nice application. Switch Sound File Converter. With that one can extract the audio and compress it. Then I use DivX Converter to replace the original audio with the compressed in the movie. I tried a compession function of -60dB to 0 oompressed to -20dB to 0 but this results in all kind of noise being amplifeid so much that speaking is barely discernable. A slope of -60dB to 0 compressed to -40dB to 0 seems to work. Regards.

A lot depends on the type of processing with time constants being the largest difference.. Some radios have such a long release that they don’t do much for improvement with the distortion coming from overloading the audio front end.. The second problem is voice type with a heavy bass voice overloading. Trying to talk a foot away from the microphone in a highly reverberate room is also another problem,, Couple this with a bassy voice and low frequency room modes will be the worst combination.. I prefer rf clipping with steep cutoff below 300 hz with light fast (100ms) rt timed compression before the clipper… talk closely to the microphone and a dead room.. Favorite microphone being a Rode nt1.

The IC-7300, and I assume it's siblings also, have a meter to assist with setting compression. The recommended setting at normal voice level is between 10 and 20dB. If the meter exceeds its upper indicator distortion may occur. Transmitted audio quality can be sampled directly using the Monitor function which is very helpful in achieving optimal performance and eliminates the need to use an remote receiver such as websdr or audio reports from other operators.

As always, great advice.. Many thanks, Cal..John..G4EIJ

Using SDR's to sample your audio really is a great resource. One thing to note though, set the bandwidth of the SDR to equal or greater than that which you are transmitting or you will not hear a true representation of your audio. This is also one of the reasons some hams might say you sound "this way" while others say "that way", so to speak. Your bandwidth, EQ settings and uber expensive mic won't be well represented on receivers set to 300 hz low cut and a bandwidth of 2.4 kilohertz for an example.

Hello, first off I really appreciate your informative videos! If you are familiar with the Icom 7300, on it's monitor function, as we know doesn't give the true 100% representation of the TX audio. With that said, while compression levels are set per the manual, even sometimes lower (5-10db on COMP meter), the monitor audio sounds tight and distorted...is this also inaccurate as far as hearing the raspy sound and distortion with only 5-10 db of compression? I haven't had a chance to listen to a web sdr as of yet, but want to make sure the audio doesn't sound like this on the receiving end. Thanks!

Working contests you hear a lot of operators, and some of the audio (< 3% say) is truly horrid, and I am sure they would get better results and have more CQ returns if they sorted out their sound. Once you start clipping waveforms, you introduce harmonics all over the place. Another audio problem (among many) is the transmission is way too bass, lacks definition on phonetics etc, so that's difficult in a crowded band. Great advice from Callum, here.

This is not just serious over-compression, the audio sounds highly distorted, with a bunch of Echo and distortion! It might be the addition of an external audio processor, with a VERY SERIOUS level of audio LIMITING!!! Which can add a bunch of distortion, if turned up too high!!!

Hi Cal, thanks for the comparison. I have an 890 just received and it has about 6 presets , I am sure yours does too. Which do find works as it is on that monster ?

Yes,I've had to switch off my sotabeams unit on reports it was overwhelming,so I suppose being selective is the answer.

One of the basics to always remember on sideband (obviously) is that needle has to fall back. Just with a decent meter, you can see it, set the gain (at least) so that it does and then a little under that. I found this to be a good rule of thumb if you can't hear yourself. The same may be employed with compression and processing, sure, it raises your average level, but this again is not necessarily desirable for SSB and clarity. I've found that only a small amount of compression is acceptable, in general. Of course processors vary by AGC attack time and the wave shape of those compressed, or often, clipped peaks. That's my limited knowledge on this as I do not have radios with these features, just have built and used external audio devices.

Nice. But does one really need a websdr station? I've done the same by using my own SDRplay receiver listening on a short rx antenna while transmitting into a dummy load and while adjusting the controls for the optimum mic gain and processing level. While recording, I just read out the adjusting knob's mic level and/or the processing level settings as my test message. Then on playback, I write down the optimum settings for each microphone and put a sticker on them so I won't forget them. However, using a websdr station does have the advantage of telling one how well a weak, but processed, signal gets through with real-world interference

been using online sdr's for years now . just mentioning these will get you hate mail. asking people what you sound like is always scary as well you know what most are like on ham . sdr are great to start off ur radio day hearing EXACTLY what you sound like to your ear and signal checks .

Understanding what the 'compressor' does helps people understand the potential problem. I think. The way I understand it is. A compressor is non-linear amplification of the audio. The amount of amplification depends on how low or high the source audio is in amplitude. If you simply amplify audio linearly, you bring everything up the same amount. So loud bits are made just as much louder as the quiet bits are. This can cause the loud parts to exceed the top of the amplifiers range, clipping them off. A compressor amplifies quiet parts more than it amplifies loud parts. So it can amplify something quiet much more without pushing the loud parts so high that they clip. This 'compresses' all of the audio up toward the top, giving the overall audio more of a punchy sound. The down side to this is that room noise, background, and the quieter parts of what you are saying are all amplified right up. Muddying up the overall sound. A little bit of compression can give your voice more loudness and make it easier to understand when your signal is weak on the receiving end. Too much just makes it hard to understand you. As you demonstrated so well Cal.

hi i want to get back on the radio from the CB years and people say ssb is good. I dont have my amature licence and wanted your thoughts on what to buy and is it worth it

As a casual observer, l like to watch Steve, Green Mountain Maniac, he uses ESSB. It appears to me, you can spend a similar budget on a whole audio chain, and have infinite tweaking to offset QSB, or QRM conditions, instead of placing all your faith in just a microphone. Another way around the mountain, which appeals to me. 👍

Great Cal…..✅

Processing aside, some would benefit from a simple lesson on mic technique, & room acoustics/reverb. Things like talking across the diaphragm to avoid popped plosives, or not using a desk mic at 2ft proximity in a reverberant room.

What's your log software that you are using?

Same with an electric guitar clean tone. Flatten the peaks and raise the troughs so every note can be heard more evenly, but not to the point that it strangles ALL of the dynamics and raises the noise floor. Funny how some hobbies cross paths!

Oh so true Cal and I also want to say I can not believe how bad a rig can sound out of the box. Why does every rig need to have it mic EQ set way away from how it comes ?? My ftdx10 sound like a muddy Turd out of the box and once I took out 10db of lows and maxed the mids & highs and opened the bandwidth to 4K it sounds great 😊 if you own a Yaesu parametric EQ email me I’m good on qrz I can forward you my eq setting and you will be absolutely AMAZED ☺️

So, no auuuuuuddddddiiiiiooooooo? 😀

the FT991A has A feature that records your audio and allows you to listen to it build right into the radio, no need to transmit at all Quite simple to do actually .

I’m confused why you would tell them 5/9 if they sound so bad?

Hi Callum, Once again, as some one from the broadcasting industry, you see this all the time. The "untrained" gets it in their head that "wind it up & it goes further". This is true to a point with AM. FM doesn't really suffer this. But this is not where the issue is here. The smarter engineers - trained in the art of "less is more". Know the limits. These "limits" come from some very suss places when you employ "digital processing" or even digital links. Which is now common place in a just about everything - including lots of ham gear. In a broadcast chain you need to watch out for compounding artifacts. But thats not the main point here either. I'd suggest the first guy in the video has either popping on his end into his mic and it's causing drastic limiting on his end. Then I'd suggest his DSP chip is about to release the "magic smoke"... something is wrong there. Third, is more with the second sample, this sounds like some one playing mp3 audio files over an SSB shortwave service. That's just a big NO THANKS! As the wishy washy that we ignore still gets sent out. There is one final thing I'd like to suggest... I can't see DSP chips in Ham gear being made at the same cost level as ones used in a $20 000 limiter box for Broadcast. Some eyeballing of how the chip obtains the Hi and Low pass filtering is needed. Filter ringing is also your enemy. Cheers buddy, Great work! 73's

Remember when I said 4:1 ratio on your amp a few weeks ago on AM. The audio is the same… distorted and shitty. Softly jently does it yes. ? 90-95 % audio . 4:1 carrier to max rms .

I like to listen to myself so I know that I dont sound like a Parakeet!

Just look at the scope, some operators just haven't a clue!! Everything switched up to 11, and they think it will make them louder.

Sounds better without processing

Why did you give them 59 reading when they aren't?

This is more than just excessive compression! Sounds like all kinds of weird distortion... maybe digital artifacts! Which makes me wonder what kind of radio they are using!!! But this is something I am noticing more and more on the bands!

I cannot make out what one guy is saying because his compression is so high.

Contests are the best time to hear dreadful modulation. Some stations are firm believers in using ACFC(All Controls Fully Clockwise) thinking this will get them the contacts. If only they'd make use of WebSDR to monitor themselves. Some of the early audio processors built into rigs could be a bit grim, but with modern rigs there really is no excuse for sounding like a Dalek with a mouth full of porridge.🙄73 Gareth GW4JPC

👍

Not as bad as the guys on 40 meters running the echo and reverb crap.

The best way to use a processor is to leave it off

Don't use country's or places in your call sign. Confusing!

Compressor at 15% is plenty

Has anybody ever used a standard fist mic, with default radio settings and had the guy on the other end comment on the poor quality of the audio? The correct answer is NO!

Dont give them A 59 give them a 49 or 39

If this happens to me , i would be glad someone tell me about it Thank you for your work and dedication, very nice and interesting channel by the way All the best , hope to hear and work you on the air - 73 de Va2Pcv

Thanks for the tip. I really enjoy these kinds of instructional videos. I always go away learning something. Cheers. KZ5MLS

I’d say your all good Callum but I have broad shoulders you could tell me to piss off and I’d smile 😃 de W9US

You sound good both with and without processing; you sound a bit *stronger* with processing. You've proven, in this video, the value of processing. Thank you, Callum. de WB2DYJ