[TenTec] "Talk Power" Problem

[Merle Bone]

Mike (NM7X) said:
"That's not necessarily true. It's possible to process very aggressively 
without this becoming an issue. Broadcast stations do it all of the 
time. Usually, one or more of the compressors is / are gated. (Yes, 
sometimes there are a number of them in the audio chain.)"
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I certainly agree with Mike. And, I doubt that those broadcast stations were transmitting "grating sounding" audio in their broadcasts. Makes it hard to get good "advertising ratings."  :-)  I use the W2IHY equalizer and "noise gate" in front of the Orion (Originally bought for the Yaesu MP). The noise gate is very effective in preventing the back ground noise from being expanded. 

I was involved in using broadcast compression many years ago. It clearly improved both the communication clarity and extended the effective range. I suspect a lot of bad compression circuits, or bad adjustment of compression, have led people to their biases. The V2 compression is certainly not a great capability ( It has seen a lot of changes since V1 and it starts to create significant distortion after very little compression). If I were limited to that, I would probably use the new W2IHY compressor in front of the Orion or Orion II (Much like Carl - N4PY uses the Ten-Tec 234 in front of the V2 code). However, the V1 speech processing code generates some of the best audio I have ever heard - with significant increases in talk power for when you are working a really marginal DX path. It is an important compliment to a great receiver! 
73, Merle - W0EWM