There is absolutely no substitute for hearing your own signal on the air. Not even the K3's built-in monitor.
Commercial broadcast stations (at least when I was messing around in broadcast in the 50's and 60's) always had at least one monitor going that everyone could hear that was driven by a radio tuned to the actual on-air signal. It was not only reassured them about quality but was a station-wide announcement if anything went down (at least in the little WKRP-sized stations I worked in). Smart Hams do the same, at least sporadically, for both 'phone and CW signals. You don't need a top tier receiver for use as a monitor. SSB capability is available cheap in many portable receivers. That also gives you a nifty portable for various things, such as chasing RFI or listening to the band away from the shack. Some even come with built-in recorders - solid state or cassette tape. If you have the KDVR3 option you can transmit a recording while you tune in your signal on the monitor. If not, it's still easy if you can hear a true "zero beat" like us OTs learned to do long ago. Just transmit into a dummy load and send a tone (or whistle or hum) while listening to the monitor. Tune the monitor for zero beat between the tone source (you, if whistling or humming) and the audio from the monitor. Now you can record some transmission and listen critically on playback. Just don't forget to use the dummy load :-) Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- Noticed two things with this contest. First, how many stations were occupying as much as 4 kHz of bandwidth. And, did you notice how man were using some form recorded exchanges/calls? And how many sounded absolutely terrible? I'm talking outright lousy distorted audio. Some I had to ask for a repeat item by item to get him to actually speak and not re-play the recording. I think they would be astounded and maybe embarrassed if they heard them selves on the air. I started using my KDVR3 but after hearing some of the others, I quit, not knowing how I really sounded. I know my mic sounds good. Will have to check this out soon with some on air recordings from friends. OK, who's got the Kool-Aid pitcher? Where are the nuts and pretzels? ...bc nr4c ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
