[CQ-Contest] Noise reduction in headsets

[Larry N7DF]

I have also found that the Heil headsets are a little too broadband for amateur communications work but I've found a very effective solution.

I route my headphone audio through an AMCOM (1-888-803-5832) ClearSpeech Digital speaker. (Model CSS-1)  The results are remarkable.  Often it sounds like the band is dead as there is no noise whatsoever unless you are receiving a station.  There is a minimum amount of digital ringing on strong signals which can be controlled by reducing the receiver gain.  I have  frequently found that a station is Q-5 through the CSS-1 and simply not there without it.

On the TI9M DXpedition I found that I could cascade the CSS-1 with the DSP noise reduction in the ICOM 756 PRO II and have total noise silence on 160 meters.  This let me copy stations that were so weak that they only hissed in the headphones.  Without the full cascaded system they simply weren't there.  It also allowed much better discrimination between tones when pulling stations out of pileups.

Larry
N7DF


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