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Re: [TenTec] Headphones for ORION I?

To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Headphones for ORION I?
From: "Dr. Gerald N. Johnson" <geraldj@weather.net>
Reply-to: geraldj@weather.net, Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:35:42 -0500
List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>


On 8/11/2010 7:02 PM, Jim Brown K9YC wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:42:08 -0500, Stuart Rohre wrote:

You may
need to transform the audio to a higher voltage to improve your reception

Almost everything in this email is wrong.

See my tutorial on headphones in http://audiosystemsgroup.com/RFI-Ham.pdf

It's in an Appendix.

Most modern radios are designed to drive almost anything from 8 ohms up,
and are optimized for about 8 ohms to about 200 ohms. No matching required,
no matter how hight or how low the Z. With modern phones, the higher the
impedance, the less loudness you're likely to get from a modern output
stage.

And so the voltage swing is limited to keep from overdriving the low impedance heaphones. Sometimes a voltage step up or impedance match will get more signal to higher impedance headphones and that is most conveniently accomplished with a transformer, such as an 8 ohm to 600 ohm transformer. Such transformers ARE available from Mouser and probably digi-key among others.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On the other hand, the very old crystal headphones are very high impedance,
and also very sensitive -- 40 years ago I used them to do field service
troubleshooting on audio systems, and I could even hear (barely) mic level
with them! Fidelity was not great, comfort was even worse.

73, Jim Brown K9YC



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