ok, teach me some things about broadcash transmitter audio chains.

[w3jn]

Keep an eye peeled for CRL processors on eBay.  You want the Peak Modulation Controller and the Spectral Energy Processor.  They came in various flavors, including stereo.  Make sure you get the AM version though.  I got a pair for the home station at a hogfest for about $60, and another pair for the lake was about a hundred bux on eBay.

[K5UJ]

There's a CRL PMC450 on ebay now but the seller wants a lot.  no bids 2 hours to go.  $300 (which explains why there are no bids hi hi).  But take a look to get an idea of what JN is talking about.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200433312245

Rob

Keep an eye peeled for CRL processors on eBay.  You want the Peak Modulation Controller and the Spectral Energy Processor.  They came in various flavors, including stereo.  Make sure you get the AM version though.  I got a pair for the home station at a hogfest for about $60, and another pair for the lake was about a hundred bux on eBay.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Go with the 80s vintage BC stuff, if you can: DAP310 (actually 70s), DAP610, CRL stuff, Pacific Recorder Modulimiter, early Optimod AMs, Inovonics 250. These are superior to the consumer grade boxes in actual processing, RF immunity and reliability.

Keep an eye peeled for CRL processors on eBay.  You want the Peak Modulation Controller and the Spectral Energy Processor.  They came in various flavors, including stereo.  Make sure you get the AM version though.  I got a pair for the home station at a hogfest for about $60, and another pair for the lake was about a hundred bux on eBay.

[W2ZE]

Derb,

I might have a CBS audimax/volumax and a Aphex compellor for you. Also, if you need a hand setting that tx and audio up let me know. I sold that tx to Jay back in 2004 or 05. Pictures of the big move are on this site somewhere I think. needless to say I'm very familiar with that tx. Tha old girl has certainly made the rounds from Oil city, PA as a backup, to Jerry KG2BK, to me, to Jay, then Fred, now you. I also have a plate transformer that exactly fits the one in there now, but it is 2200 vct, so it can make those 810's a bit more lively, make that a full legal limit hammer swingin' maul.
I'll look tonight for the processing, I just can't remember if it made the move or if I sold it off.

Mike, ZE

[W2XR]

Go with the 80s vintage BC stuff, if you can: DAP310 (actually 70s), DAP610, CRL stuff, Pacific Recorder Modulimiter, early Optimod AMs, Inovonics 250. These are superior to the consumer grade boxes in actual processing, RF immunity and reliability.

Keep an eye peeled for CRL processors on eBay.  You want the Peak Modulation Controller and the Spectral Energy Processor.  They came in various flavors, including stereo.  Make sure you get the AM version though.  I got a pair for the home station at a hogfest for about $60, and another pair for the lake was about a hundred bux on eBay.

Or an Inovonics 222. It's a great piece of equipment, in my opinion, and reasonably priced, too.

73,

Bruce

[K5UJ]

Steve is right.  all the AM final processing boxes from the 70s and 80s are pretty good for ham voice operation.  i.e the ones that perform final limiting and usually allow asymmetry.   You don't need to blow huge bucks on an Optimod.  For a quick eyeball tour to get an idea of what's out there and what they look like go here:

http://www.261.gr/vintage2.html and page through.   I think most or all of the classic AM processors are there.
actually the stuff I wanted to point out is at http://www.261.gr/vintage8.html

rob

[ke7trp]

unless you find this stuff real cheap at a swap and swindle or from a friend. Just skip it.  Dont throw even thousands of dollars into an audio rack. Its just a waste of time and money.  I know an Amer that has $37,000 invested in his Audio rack. I have looked up each piece of gear that he has. He sounds great but not its just not needed. 

Getting a decent  mic and preamp is the first step, Any gains after that will have a low Dollar to smile ratio.


Clark

[K1JJ]

On the subject of EQ's...

It all depends upon your voice. If you have a great voice for radio, (~5% or less of the crowd) then you can get away with little to no EQ. But if you're like the rest of us with some mid-bass in there, then an EQ is mandatory to suck it out.

There's a few guys on the air now with mid-bassy voices (like mine) who are actually hard to understand because they have no EQ in line or have it adjusted poorly - all I hear is duh-duh-duh... the sound of heavy, muddy mid-bass.   They cannot be heard out of the local area cuz the static takes them out.  It's important to boost the ~50- 70hz area, roll off sharply into the 125 area, stay rolled off until ~600 hz and then start a slow climb up to 4-5kc.  The db amount of this roll off and boost is done experimentally and tailored to your own voice through listening to actual on-air tapes of yourself. This is the so-called "smiley face" or "S"  EQ curve.

With my mid-bassy voice, toggling off the EQ is like putting a gag on. If you're one of these poor souls, then use an EQ. Put it after the preamp and before the rest of the processing chain. I use a Berhinger 31-band unit. The guys with good radio voices can get away with simple bass/treble controls or 5-band EQs.  I cannot.

I also use the same EQ on ssb. The settings are somewhat critical. Last week I rarely got an audio compliment on ssb. Then I did a new curve and brought in some lows on the EQ. The last time I was on I got comments about the nice audio at least every forth contact in a pile up. It's the same on AM. If your voice is just average, there IS a sweet spot of EQ settings where you will sound like a million buxs - but once out of this range it goes downhill fast...

T

[W1GFH]

Getting a decent  mic and preamp is the first step, Any gains after that will have a low Dollar to smile ratio.

One other reason to "keep it simple" is the fun adventure that awaits you in keeping RF out of all those audio boxes and cables. Some people are lucky and get clean signals without too much effort, and others spend days hunting gremlins even though they followed all the rules of shielding and grounding. I hope you get lucky. Again, congrats on the BC rig Derb, and I hope to run into you during the heavy metal event this weekend, provided my PWer makes the grade.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

No need to spend anywhere near thousands of dollars. Much of the 80's vintage BC stuff can be had for tens of dollars.

I agree, start with a good mic (once again, well less than $100 needs to be spent), then an EQ (also very inexpensive). Even the EQ may not be needed. I don't use one. The CRL processor I use provides the HF boost I would dial in with the EQ. Sure, I could add mega-bass with the eq, but it sounds fake and silly after about 30 seconds.

[N2DTS]

If you dont want to spend a lot, an all in one box like the berringer vx2000 is great.
I think it was about $120.00 and has a compressor (with threshold) a noise gate (not the squelch type), some EQ, a mike preamp with power, lots of flashing lights, a de esser with adjustable set points, all in one rf imune rack space, balanced ins and outs.

Lots of guys use them, or used to.
A little eq, and compression goes a LONG way in boosting the audio punch and eliminates having to watch the scope or mod monitor every second.

Yes, it would be nice to have a rack full of pro AM radio station gear, but that would be a fair amount of money if you have to buy it on the open market.
It might also make things a little too easy to be much fun.

Someone long ago used to run a sure 55s into a stock 32V3 and had the best audio I ever heard, if I do that I sound like someone gagged me....

I seem to need a lot of EQ to even sound human...

Brett

[W2XR]

On the subject of EQ's...

It all depends upon your voice. If you have a great voice for radio, (~5% or less of the crowd) then you can get away with little to no EQ. But if you're like the rest of us with some mid-bass in there, then an EQ is mandatory to suck it out.

There's a few guys on the air now with mid-bassy voices (like mine) who are actually hard to understand because they have no EQ in line or have it adjusted poorly - all I hear is duh-duh-duh... the sound of heavy, muddy mid-bass.   They cannot be heard out of the local area cuz the static takes them out.  It's important to boost the ~50- 70hz area, roll off sharply into the 125 area, stay rolled off until 800 hz and then start a slow climb up to 3-4kc.  The db amount of this roll off and boost is done experimentally and tailored to your own voice through listening to actual on-air tapes of yourself. This is the so-called "smiley face" or "S"  EQ curve.

T

Hi Tom,

Out of curiousity, could you advise as to why you boost the 50 to 70 hz region, and how much boost you apply there?

I was under the very possibly incorrect impression that relatively little energy exists in the male voice in that region, plus boosting this region could bring up the level of ambient noise (such as accoustic transformer hum, etc.) in the shack.

As you know, I have heard your signal quite recently, and I provided a very positive audio report, so clearly you are doing the right thing here.

Thanks & 73,

Bruce

[N3DRB The Derb]

I also have a plate transformer that exactly fits the one in there now, but it is 2200 vct, so it can make those 810's a bit more lively, make that a full legal limit hammer swingin' maul.

Dave, find that thang for me when you can, I'll throw it in there - I was planning on QRO'ing it.  It came from Oil City? I've been there, what was the station it was at? Nice to get the whole history of the rig.

It's going to stay here until I croak. I didn't do the right thing with the BT-20A, so we are involved in partially righting old wrongs. I cant get the BT-20 back, but I can get this back on the air agn and give a bit back to someone that was involved with the BT20A.

Beside the fact I'll be bad and nationwide. 

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Yes, it would be nice to have a rack full of pro AM radio station gear, but that would be a fair amount of money if you have to buy it on the open market.

As posted at least twice already, no it wouldn't. Further a full rack is not need too. The CRL units are 1RU each. If you got all three, it's a whopping 3RU, hardly larger than the VX2000, etc.

[KD6VXI]

Yes, it would be nice to have a rack full of pro AM radio station gear, but that would be a fair amount of money if you have to buy it on the open market.

As posted at least twice already, no it wouldn't. Further a full rack is not need too. The CRL units are 1RU each. If you got all three, it's a whopping 3RU, hardly larger than the VX2000, etc.

Or, as stated before, your station computer with a decent soundcard.  Total cost = 0, if you use the station computer (that's already being used for logging, I know, I'm ASSuming your station is PC enabled).  Reaper is free for personal use.  Broadcast.vst is free, as is the eq and other de-essing (I use Spitfish.vst) products.

It's not for everyone, but you DON'T have to spend thousands.  As also stated earlier, there is a gentleman in .it that has spoofed most of the popular commercial audio processors in 'soundcard', if you will.


--Shane

[K1JJ]

Hi Tom,

Out of curiousity, could you advise as to why you boost the 50 to 70 hz region, and how much boost you apply there?

I was under the very possibly incorrect impression that relatively little energy exists in the male voice in that region, plus boosting this region could bring up the level of ambient noise (such as accoustic transformer hum, etc.) in the shack.

As you know, I have heard your signal quite recently, and I provided a very positive audio report, so clearly you are doing the right thing here.

Thanks & 73,
Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I play a game with my mid-bassy voice here. I try to boost as much DEEP low end as possible, but still avoid the mid-bassy sound.  It seems I can get away with boosting the 50-90hz area and produce a small amount of  sorely needed  deep low “false” bass but then need to roll off the freqs after that sharply to compensate. It doesn’t add much, but it is something at least.  Even 110 hz causes mid-bass mud, so it’s critical.

This was done by trial and error and may not be needed for others’ voices. In fact, some days I will come in, like in the morning when my voice is lower, and I’ll have to roll off the 70-90hz area. Then other times at night, I see little effect cuz I have absolutely no energy below 100hz  to use…  

So, as mentioned before, if you have a great radio voice, you can do virtually anything and sound good all the time. But I need to stay on top of my EQ settings and play little games like this to stay sounding decent.

No, I don’t seem to get any 60hz  audio induced hum as a result. I’ve had other lash-ups that did, but this one is tamer… The whole Fabio AM system is on a roll lately…  

T  

[W2ZE]

Dave, find that thang for me when you can, I'll throw it in there - I was planning on QRO'ing it.

Dave, who's Dave? Dave's not here, man!

It's back at my OM's place in upstate NY, in his dry storage shed.I'll have to fetch it. Hard to believe that things only gunna be 45 minutes away from me, its like a bad ex YL, following me around.

I don't know anything about it prior to Oil City, but my OM knew the owner/op, and he got the box second hand for backup purposes. Like I said, that thing has been bouncing around QTH to QTH for the last decade. Not like its exactly portable, but a good solid hunk of 40's state of the art deco. I ran it on 160, then did the convert for Jay to 75. then he converted it back to 160. Both puning motors still worked when I had it, but the link coupling motor sh!t the bed, so that I put a bakelite knob on and made it "set it and forget it".
Should provide hours of swinging monkey maul action on the 160 meter wave.

[ke7trp]

Yes. I like to play entire old ablums over the air.   Lots Of disco.

Clark

[KA1ZGC]

You can get some great audio with some fairly run-of-the-mill gear if you put the time into it.

ZGC Studios in Albion couldn't be any simpler: Radio Shack Highball 7 microphonium (rewired for balanced audio) feeds the Arrakis 12000 mixer (it's not like you even need a mixer, anyway, just a preamp will do), which feeds a JBL graphic EQ (whose sole purpose in life is to axe-murder the plentiful 200Hz energy), which feeds an Inovonics 220 (on loan from HLR), which feeds the Junkyard Dawg.

That's it.

With that, I'm getting pretty good audio using one of the chintziest dynamic mics ever built (I got it new for 15 bucks 20 years ago). I'm quite pleased with the recordings I've been sent over the last couple of years.

Grab any mike, an EQ, and at least some peak limiting, and you'll be happier 'n a pig in poo.

[W2ZE]

Are you going to transmit music on the ham bands?

Exept for the occasional music QSO.

[N3DRB The Derb]

Sry, Mike, I'm kinda buzzed at the moment, but not on pot.    I'm thinking might be a good time to take a little nap......   little timeout action..... yeaah......

BTW, since everything here is popping on all 4's now, how about coming on over and operate sum during the AM TX Rally? u be welcome here.

[W2ZE]

Aprreciate the offer, but I got the HF300 rig on, and planned to do some operating myself. Not gunna be in full 'test mode, just 75 m ghetto action.

[N3DRB The Derb]

oh ok, I thought you were still QRT. Did you snag a house, last I knew you were still apt bound?

couple more bites of pumpkin pie, then off to bed.....

[K5UJ]

Forgot to mention Bruce is right with regard to the inovonics 222.  that's the final limiter box I run and I'd find it very hard to operate without it. 

My own experience with the smiley face eq contour has been unsatisfactory.  A lot of this stuff with audio is subjective and based on individual voice characteristics so the YMMV caveat applies.  There are also hundreds or thousands of different products out there with millions of possible variations so any question can get a flood of "this is what works for me" type answers.  That's fine but it is important to keep in mind that unlike boatanchor receivers say, you'll never be able to try everything in this lifetime, so you have to just focus on setting up something that seems to get the job done for you, then move on to other things. 

Anyway, in my case the problem I ran into with the smiley face and my voice was that I felt like I hit my modulation peaks with low frequencies so most of the transmissions were peaking with muddy lows.  It sounded okay with the right passband and frequency response on the rx, 12 KHz for example with 0 to 6 KHz audio, but if someone listened with an 8 KHz passband, they'd just get the low stuff and weak mids and I'd be much less intelligible.   I decided the goal should be an eq setting that gave me a flat response from around 200 hz up to 4, 5 or 6 KHz (depending on band crowding) and a 10 dB rise from 80 Hz up to 200.    This sounds okay on anything from a 5 KHz passband up to 12 KHz.   My voice except when I first get up in the morning, is mostly midrange and essing  high frequency so this gets me how I sound in real life I think. 

Rob

[W2XR]

Hi Tom,

Out of curiousity, could you advise as to why you boost the 50 to 70 hz region, and how much boost you apply there?

I was under the very possibly incorrect impression that relatively little energy exists in the male voice in that region, plus boosting this region could bring up the level of ambient noise (such as accoustic transformer hum, etc.) in the shack.

As you know, I have heard your signal quite recently, and I provided a very positive audio report, so clearly you are doing the right thing here.

Thanks & 73,
Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I play a game with my mid-bassy voice here. I try to boost as much DEEP low end as possible, but still avoid the mid-bassy sound.  It seems I can get away with boosting the 50-90hz area and produce a small amount of  sorely needed  deep low “false” bass but then need to roll off the freqs after that sharply to compensate. It doesn’t add much, but it is something at least.  Even 110 hz causes mid-bass mud, so it’s critical.

This was done by trial and error and may not be needed for others’ voices. In fact, some days I will come in, like in the morning when my voice is lower, and I’ll have to roll off the 70-90hz area. Then other times at night, I see little effect cuz I have absolutely no energy below 100hz  to use…  

So, as mentioned before, if you have a great radio voice, you can do virtually anything and sound good all the time. But I need to stay on top of my EQ settings and play little games like this to stay sounding decent.

No, I don’t seem to get any 60hz  audio induced hum as a result. I’ve had other lash-ups that did, but this one is tamer… The whole Fabio AM system is on a roll lately…  

T  

Thanks, T!

Can you advise how much boost you put into that 50 to 70 hz region? I'm somewhat curious, and tempted to try it myself.


Of course, like anything else, my own mileage will vary, but I'm willing to hear what it sounds like, just the same.

73,

Bruce