[TRLog] Digital Sound for Contesting

[swca@ionet.net]

At 11:01 AM 10/17/97, N4ZR wrote:
>In my opinion, for the .02 that's worth, digitally voiced serial numbers
>are a non-starter.

Ahh, voice-card numbers in the SS (or whatever contest): I agree with Pete,
people using this CT feature generally sound a little too mechanical.  I
don't think anybody who wants to be competitive would want to sound this way
because I think it does slow things down.  A lot.

Think of it this way - even if the 'voicewave' is the same whether spoken
(yelled?) into the mic or coming off a digital sound memory, the difference
is in the amount of silence between individual sounds, individual numbers,
and inflections.  The voice card gets the articulation right within the
memorized number/letter combinations, but it does not get the space between
the soundbites naturally - hence the unnatural sound.

Say these two examples and you'll see what I mean:
----------------------
Example 1: What the op says
NOVEMBERFIVEOSCARTANGO
----------------------
Example 2: What the card says
NOVEMBER
FIVE
OSCAR
TANGO
----------------------
I think you will agree that what really comes out of our mouths during a
phone contest sounds more like Example 1 than Example 2.  Look at it on a
'scope and it becomes even more obvious.  About all they have in common is
the voice.  Inflection, delay and timing are all different between the two.

But then I read the CT manual (I was installing a card for someone else) and
realized there were a whole bunch of user-specified delay variables which
sounded like they could sharpen it all up a BUNCH.  If I remember right,
there are separate memories for prefix number-letter combinations and all
suffix two-letter combinations.  Because theyr'e separate that allows you to
do credible inflection.  I know you can set the amound of silence (like, to
ZERO) between soundbites.  I suspect nobody (or very few) people take
advantage of all these features to increase 'naturalness.'  As far as I can
tell from the reading (I have no need to use CT), the tools exist to make
this a rather successful system.  There could be people using all the fancy
features and we don't know it because they sound, uh, NATURAL?  Who knows.
I highly doubt it.

I have never tried it personally.  This is just my opinion.

Mark, N5OT


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