[TenTec] Crystal vs. DSP Filtering

[ac5e at comcast.net]

Hmmm - all of the Omni's here - total of 5 including the two V's and the three VI's - do best with the PBT indicator straight up and the manual notch all the way hard right (unless you need to notch out a carrier). You can shift the PBT to the 11:00 position and pick up some lows on the LSB (SSB and CW) modes and to the 1:00 position on USB. Beyond that things go south rather hurriedly.

Most of the very few problems I have had with guest ops and Omni's has been the guest's tendency to set the manual notch straight up, putting a BIG hole in the pass band, and then complaining the "audio isn't right,""the rig's broke," etc.. The second most common problem is to have the PBT hard one way or the other reducing the passband to darn near nothing. 

And on that subject, the third most common problem is turning the processor to the 3:00 or greater position and then turning the mike gain way up. Splatter city! 

Now, you realize that tastes vary. That's why there are 300 odd flavors of ice cream. As far as my preference between crystal or DSP filtering, having used several outboard DSP boxes on the Omni V's and the Omni VI+'s, and the Jupiter and the Orion by themselves it's been my experience they compliment each other. Each does something very well the other cannot do as well. The VI+'s version of DSP with a fixed setting does a good job of cutting most forms of background hash although it makes some signals harder to copy, the Jupiter's more advanced DSP does an even better job, and the Orion's combination of narrow band crystal filters plus an extrememly effective DSP is by far the best combination. 

I don't feel particularly handicapped with straight crystal filtering - or with straight DSP, but I do prefer the combination. And since your tastes are probably not the same as mine YMMV. 

73  Pete Allen  AC5E