Audio Settings

Transmit Audio Settings on the Kenwood TS-990

I’ve been using the Kenwood TS-990 HF transceiver for almost a year. I’ve loved every minute of learning about the features of Kenwood’s great new flagship radio. In addition to having a superb receiver, this rig has the ability to produce some of the best sounding “Kenwood audio” available on any HF rig without using any outboard processor. However, as with any feature rich HF radio, there is a learning curve, and it takes a while to arrive at the best transmit audio settings for the operator’s voice and microphone.

After quite a bit of experimenting with my Electro Voice RE-27 interfaced to the TS-990 (and after quite a few local hams giving me advice about the settings), I came to the conclusion that I had arrived at the best set up. There’s not just one setting to be concerned about, but after adjusting them all I arrived at the best settings for everyday use of the radio. I use different settings when working DX in noisy conditions, but the settings I am about to describe are what I use for “normal operations”.

As I stated above, and as I also mentioned when I described my settings for my old FT-2000, these settings work for me, but your mileage may vary. Also keep in mind that you can only get so far listening to your own transmitted audio through headphones, so I would encourage everyone to get a few helpful hams on the air with you to give you advice as you experiment.

First things first. I always start with the Mic Gain control and make sure my transmitted audio stays within the ALC zone on the meter. On the TS-990, you will need to set your meter to show your ALC when you transmit. You will find your meter selection on the right hand column of your main screen. It is the second soft button from the bottom. I like my ALC to be right at the top edge on peaks. I was able to achieve this with the Mic Gain control set at the center (50% or 12 o’clock). The Mic Gain control is the center control of the far left knob on the bottom row. I also have the speech processor activated and set at 60%. The speech processor control is directly below the F3 key, with the adjustment knob below and to the left.

After getting the Mic Gain set, I moved on to the Transmit Filter settings. Next to adjusting your Mic Gain, I believe that your transmitted bandwidth is the most important setting to achieving good sounding audio. The sky’s the limit here, but I was looking for good conversational audio – not too high and not too low. On the TS-990, you will select your bandwidth adjustment screen by pressing and holding the “TX-FIL” soft button, located at the bottom of the right hand column of soft keys. After a bit of tinkering, I settled on a low cut setting of 200 and a high cut setting of 2800. The TS-990 has three programmable transmit filters, so I would encourage you to set up one for everyday use, one for DX and one just to play with.

Now, this is where the REAL fun began with the TS-990. Not only does this radio have an internal graphic equalizer for transmit and receive, it has 18 bands of adjustment ranging from .3 kHz to 5.1 kHz. This provides the user the opportunity to really tailor how their transmit audio sounds. It also presents the opportunity to make things sound very bad! The good news is that Kenwood has provided six pre-programmed equalizer settings, along with three user definable selections. I would encourage you to experiment with these settings until you find one you like; however, I found that after much tweaking and adjusting, the pre-set that Kenwood has labeled “Conventional” worked best for me. I use “High Boost 1” for DX and some nets.

Again, your mileage may vary, so use the User 1 through 3 pre-sets to create your own settings. To activate your transmit equalizer, press the “TX EQ/SEL” button. In the center right of the main screen you will see a box labeled “TXEQ” with an arrow pointing to your selection. If “Conventional” is selected, your will see a “C” displayed there. If the EQ is out of line you will see “OFF” after the arrow. Press and hold the “TX EQ/SEL” button and a list of available pre-sets will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to select the present you want. If you want to adjust any of the selections, move the arrow keys until your selection is highlighted, and then press the “ADJ” soft key (F4). You can then adjust each of the 18 bands with the sliders.

By the way, another cool feature of the TS-990 is the built in Audio Scope. You can use this to view the characteristics of received audio, but it will also show you your transmitted audio characteristics as well. With the bandscope active (“SCP” key) , press RF/AF (F2) to display the audio scope.

: TS-990 Audio Scope

So, there you have it. After completing these settings, everyone I have spoken with has given my great audio reports. I see no need to use any outboard audio equipment with this radio, and believe that with the broad customization that it provides, most users will be able to find a setting or settings that fits all of their operating needs.

In summary, here are my settings I use with the TS-990 for transmit audio with my Electro Voice RE-27:

Mic Gain at the center (50%)
Speech Processor Activated and set at 60%
Transmit Filter Bandwidth low at 200 Hz and high at 2800 Hz
The 18 Band Equalizer for Transmit is set to the “Conventional” pre-set.

Have fun playing with the transmit audio settings on your Kenwood TS-990!

73,

Bill

Flex Radio – Power SDR Transmit Audio Settings

I love my Flex 5000A. Having said that, it was a daunting task to get the transmit audio settings where they needed to be. I spent a lot of time with my ham friends on the air. At first I was told my audio sounded bad. After several hours of tweaking settings and researching on the web, I was able to find the “sweet spot” and now get very good audio reports. It may still not be perfect, but it’s getting there!

I have interfaced a Heil PR781 mic to my Flex (Frequency response is 50 Hz to 16 kHz). I have used this mic on other radios and have always received good reports. With the Flex 5000A, a friend suggested that I add a windscreen to the mic. I added a large foam windscreen to the mic and it seems to have helped a little with transmitted audio characteristics. Despite this small physical change, the key to making this system sound really good is an understanding of the settings within the PSDR system and how to properly adjust them. Honestly, I didn’t find a great deal of helpful advice on the web, but one online tutorial was instrumental in gettings things set up. Bob Connelly, W1AEX has posted a superb tutorial on his website. I would advise anyone new to the Flex Radio/PSDR system to read Bob’s audio settings tutorial (There’s some additional helpful info at the Flex Wiki). It will make your work much easier and will make your audio much more pleasant!

After studying Bob’s tutorial, I modified my settings while getting on-air reports from fellow hams. After many changes, we decided on the settings that everyone said sounded the best. I’m sure there may be room for additional tweaking, but I am getting solid reports with these settings in place. Here’s what we did.

First, I set the transmit meter to the mic setting so I could monitor my transmissions. The goal was to keep the audio well below “0” dBm. We began these adjustments by sliding the mic mixer control down until we found the appropriate range. Mine settled in between -13 to -3 dBm (generally). This one setting made the most difference and is likely the critical part of the process.

Transmit Meter Selected — Transmit Meter – “Mic” Selected

Final Mixer Settings — Final Mic Mixer Settings

After getting the mic mixer settings complete, we moved on to the leveler control. This control is found in the “DSP” tab in the “Setup” box. After a little testing, we set this level at 4 db. We did not change the other settings in this box.

So, there you have it! These settings seem to work best for me. Please keep in mind that your mileage may vary, and your settings will depend upon your voice characteristics and your microphone of choice. Don’t hesitate to get on the air with other hams and experiment until you are pleased with your audio reports. The Flex radio system is the best ham radio equipment I have ever used, and I look forward to continuing to experiment with the settings over time to make it work and sound even better. After all, isn’t that what ham radio is all about?

Oh, one last thing…

Save, save, save! Power SDR allows you to save your customized audio and other settings with the file name of your choice. You can save any number of custom settings depending on how you want to use your radio at any given time. But, you must save your settings or you will lose them. I’ve made it a habit of naming my “final” settings with my call and the word “final, i.e., “AB4BJ_Final”. That’s the name I give to the settings I use day-to-day. You will find the save command under the “profiles” section in the “transmit” tab of the main setup box. While experimenting, you might want to create a profile named “test” to preserve your known good settings in the “final” profile. You can always rename the “test” profile as the “final” profile once you are happy with it (there’s also a check box that will allow you to auto save). The profiles drop down box lets you switch back and forth between various transmit profiles. The sky’s the limit, so be creative!

Transmit Profiles Selection and Save Section

Profile Auto Save Check Box

Enjoy!

UPDATE:

I have switched out my PR-781 for my Heil Classic microphone. The Heil Classic is no longer in production and came in several configurations when originally sold. My Classic has the HC-5 and HC-4 elements. The HC-4 (“wide”) element has a similar frequency response to the PR-781 with a range of 50 Hz to 18 kHz. The HC-5 (“narrow”) element has a frequency response of 300 Hz to 5 kHz. The two switchable elements provide quite a bit of flexibility.

I prefer the HC-5 in line and have received good audio reports with this narrow setting. I left most of the audio settings the same with this element, but did change my transmit filter to 3000 on the high-end and 100 on the low-end. This did the trick and produces good sounding audio. For the HC-4 I use the same settings that were in line for the PR-781 but am still experimenting with this wide element.

xmitfilter_classic — Transmit Filter Setting for HC-5 Element

I’ll further update this post if I find other settings that are a better match for the HC-4.

FT-2000 Audio Settings and Set Up

I am by no means an “expert” when it comes to adjusting the audio settings in the FT-2000, but through a lot of trial and error I’ve adjusted mine to the point where I get pretty good audio reports. All it really takes is some patience and helpful hams on the air to get great sounding audio out of the FT-2000. It also helps to benefit from those who have plowed the ground before you. Through a lot of reading on the FT-2000 Yahoo group listserve (particularly the contributions of K3UR) and some excellent resources on the web (one of the best is by VK6HZ), I’ve at least become satisfied that my audio is in good shape.

Now, before you adopt what I’ve found to be the best settings (or what anyone else has reported), be aware that the quality of your audio is directly dependant on the quality of your voice. The audio characteristics of your voice will in large part determine the optimal settings for your equipment, so be prepared to experiment. That’s the nature of amateur radio anyway, right?

There are a large number of audio components designed for amateur radio and others adapted from studio use, but I’ve kept things relatively simple. My audio chain consists of four components.

Apex-215 Dual Ribbon Studio Microphone (I have also used the Heil Goldline GM-4)
W2IHY 8 Band Audio Equalizer and Noise Gate
W2IHY EQplus
FT-2000 Internal Mic Equalization Settings

You should always start with the obvious: Read the manuals and follow the instructions therein! It will save you a lot of grief.

Connecting the equipment is just as important as tweaking the settings. My outboard components interface with the rear panel RCA audio jack on the FT-2000 (FT-2000 Manual, page 32, item 15). I find this gives better results than going through the front panel 8 pin microphone connector. The front panel mic connector is empty. I have a PTT line running to the rear PTT jack (Manual, page 32, item 14) for use with a foot switch, etc.

After you get the radio’s ALC where it needs to be (mine is just below the peak of the ALC meter), then move into the adjustments of your internal EQ and outboard audio equipment. Another great word of advice from K3UR and others: Don’t eat your mic! You should try to stay about 3 inches or so away from the mic when adjusting your settings.

After all of the above and many QSOs where adjustments were made, here’s where I ended up with my settings:

FT-2000 (PEP version with latest updates)

With the outboard equipment in line, I leave the internal speech processor OFF (don’t confuse the speech processor with the internal mic eq). I have placed my mic gain at level 55. I then entered the internal menu system and made the following settings (Note: Once you make these settings, the “MIC EQ” display will light on the FT-2000 front panel. There is no “on/off” switch for this. It is active once you apply the EQ to your audio).

Menu 85 = 3000
Menu 125 = 100
Menu 126 = 10
Menu 127 = 2
Menu 128 = 800
Menu 129 = 3
Manu 130 = 3
Menu 131 = 2100
Menu 132 = 8
Menu 133 = 1

Note: the above menus are for your transmit audio when the speech processor is off. Menus 134-142 adjust transmitted audio when the processor is active. Again, I do not use the internal speech processor in my set-up.

W2IHY 8 Band

After the above, I made the following adjustments to the W2IHY 8 Band:

50 = +6
100 =+4
200 = 0
400 = -4
800 = -6
1600 = +2
2400 = +4
3200 = +7

W2IHY EQplus

Here are the final settings to the EQplus:

Bass = 10 o’clock
Treble = 2 o’clock
Comp/downward expander = on
Compression = 12 o’clock
DE Level = 12 o’clock
Output Level = 2 o’clock
Mic = 200
Mic Power = off
Gain = 7 o’clock (or a little less)
Effects = off

These settings are used for my day-to-day rag chewing and are not designed for any specific application such as contesting, chasing DX, busting pile-ups, etc. When I want to add a bit more punch to my audio, I generally adjust the FT-2000 internal menu 85 to give the characteristic I am looking for. For this reason, I keep the C.S. front panel button programmed with menu 85 as its shortcut. This simplifies quick and easy audio adjustments from that menu.

As stated at the start of this post, I don’t profess to be an expert at the intricacies of FT-2000 audio processing with outboard equipment, but these settings have served me well.

I look forward to comments anyone wishes to share about this topic. Hopefully, the more we experiment with these settings, the better we’ll sound.