[SCCC] Rig audio/ Cans

[H Lawrence Serra]

Hi Mike-

I do just the opposite! Ten years ago I bypassed the internal audio amps on my SO2R OMNI VI+s (virtually all ham rigs have crappy internal audio amps), take the audio line level output to a Behringer UB802 mixer then thru two Behringer "bricks" (audio isolation/amplification), then I close the rigs' AF amplifier gain all the way down, use the UB802 for audio volume, and ride the RF gain/AGC for optimal SNR on weak sigs. Signals are much cleaner without internal audio amps of any ham xcvr. 

For cans: I tried all the cans from $60 to $1200 at the local hi-fi specialty shop then also. I brought a CD of CW Sprint traffic and a CD player to listen to the CW thru all the different cans. I listen low (~450-510 hz), and the winner was the (then) $60 GRADO Labs SR-60 cans. Since then I have begun using BOSE QC-3 noise reduction headsets because the audio is fine, and the noise cancelling really reduces fatigue and eliminates background noise you never even realized was there.

Eric Scace K3NA wrote a couple of articles on optimizing rcvr audio chain in the NCJ a few years ago. Very informative, and basically suggested what I described above.

73, Larry N6NC

--- On Sat, 2/5/11, Michael Tope <W4EF at dellroy.com> wrote:

From: Michael Tope <W4EF at dellroy.com>
Subject: Re: [SCCC] Rig audio
To: sccc at contesting.com
Date: Saturday, February 5, 2011, 10:16 AM

On my Mark V I like to run a lot of RF attenuation in combination with 
high audio gain for lowband weak signal work. Because my Heil headset 
doesn't seem to have enough audio output for my liking when driven from 
the headphone jack of the Mark V, I bring a stereo "Y" cable out of the 
speaker jack and plug my headphones into one leg of the Y cable and a 
speaker into the other leg. The speaker output of the Mark V drives the 
Heil headsest much better than the headphone jack (enough to satisfy my 
deaf ears). I added a kill switch in series with the speaker to keep 
things quiet for late night operating.

73, Mike W4EF..........................

On 2/5/2011 9:34 AM, rgrubic at aol.com wrote:
> I  faced the same situation and built a breakout box that connected to the rear speaker jack (I ignored the front phone jack).
>
> The breakout box had 3 separate jacks for headphones (in the front) and a jack for an external speaker in the back. I mounted the box under a shelf by the radio. Each had its own potentiometer as did the speaker (a 1 or 2 k ohm pot worked ok) and in addition the speaker had a kill switch (not in the pot).
>
> I thought the multiple headphones would serve for showing someone (in my case my son) about contesting. You would want separate pots for that. (We did,) You could also then connect an audio recorder to one jack.
>
> Be mindful of using mono or stereo jacks as per your need.
>
> It's really nice to have.
>
> 73,
> Bob, NC6Q
> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
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>


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