On 4/27/2014 2:41 PM, Larry Wassmann wrote:
Do you think any of us audio guys had any influence?
W4TV is "an audio guy" -- specifically a retired broadcast engineer who worked in TV. So am I "an audio guy" -- specifically a retired audio professional who worked in sound reinforcement, recording for broadcast and CD releases, and before that in broadcast radio and TV. I'm also a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society.
W4TV is entirely correct in his recommendations, and the only extent to which we differ is that I strongly recommend an octave less low frequency bandwidth than he does. Using the TXEQ built into the K3, I recommend full cut of the three lowest octave bands (50, 100, and 200 Hz centers), and 6dB cut of the 400 Hz band.
Why? Because as a consultant specializing in the design of very high quality sound systems for acoustically challenging performance and worship spaces, I learned that 90% of all speech intelligibility is conveyed between 400 Hz and 5 kHz, but that voices and room noise have lots of energy below 400 Hz that wastes TX power. The octaves below 500 Hz contain about half of the ENERGY in speech, but contribute only about 5% to speech intelligibility. So getting rid of that wasted power and cranking up the mic gain by 3dB is the equivalent of doubling our output power!
The octave above 3 kHz adds only 10% to speech intelligibility, but burns twice as much RF bandwidth. That's OK on a dead band, but it IS selfish and inconsiderate when others want to use that spectrum. As Riley Hollingsworth (the enforcement guy at the FCC who cleaned up the ham bands before retiring several years ago) has said both in print and at a speech at Dayton, "if you want to transmit wideband audio, get yourself a broadcast station." Riley is active on the ham bands. I've worked him several times during contests.
Why do rigs include equalizers? First, because hams want them, whether for a good reason or a bad one. HOW we use them is what matters.
73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
