How hard do I peg the meter during transmit or should I stop short of pegging it at all?
I have been experimenting with different microphones, and I want to know how I should use the meter on the General Lee as a guide to how loud I should talk, and how to adjust mic gain, and mic volume. The Mics I am using are the Astatic 636L, D104-M6, and the 575M6
I have been keeping both the power mic volumes at about 5-10%, with mic gain varying between 50% and 90% for the different mics. Is it correct for me to assume that while I am talking into the mic, that the General Lee's meter needle should:
Only enter the red area of the meter occasionally?
Or, only occasionally bump the right hand side of the meter?
Or should it hit the right side of the meter 50% of the time, or more?
I find myself having to adjust occasionally for different mics, different conditions, and voice volume.
I want to have maximum clarity, but I don't want to short change the outgoing audio.
I have tried using a second radio (Cobra 25 w/o antenna) with headphones to listen in, but I am wondering if the distortion I am hearing when the TX needle gets into the red is distortion in the General Lee or overdriven receive on the Cobra 25.
SuperWackPacked General Lee, TX meter reading?
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SmallTruckBigRadio
SuperWackPacked General Lee, TX meter reading?
Last edited by SmallTruckBigRadio on March 16th, 2006, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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stickman
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SmallTruckBigRadio
Mr. RadioActive says..............E.F. Hutton!
Perhaps I can be the only one with the information on proper settings for a SuperWackPacked General Lee, so that I can have the best sounding one! heh, heh, heh.....evil sinister laugh...BobOstro61 wrote:You don't want to share this information with other General Lee owners???
I emailed Mr. RadioActive right before I submitted this post, and because I was excited about having the "right settings" and I was about to get on the road and use the radio. I was concerned that I might not get the reply from Mr. RadioActive before I headed out, so I posted the question here also, with the intentions of increasing my chances of getting an answer. But, in his usual form, Mr. RadioActive responded quickly, and with good information.
I guess you want to know what his answer was.....hmmmm...kept it a secret? or should I spill the beans? .....
Oh well, here goes....he said the SuperWackPacked General Lee Mic Gain setting should be 3 - 5 o'clock, and Power Mic's like the Astatic D104M6, and the Astatic 575M6 should be kept very low.
It seems like the meter is only a "very general" reference.
Keeping the power mic volume settings near 5-8% or so, allows mic gain on the radio to work well between the 3-5 oclock levels. Low volume settings on the power mic also seem to keep the audio very clean, with very big swing, and it also reduces background noise. If I were driving a very noisy vehicle, I might have to lose the D104, and 575, and only use the Astatic 636L, and Road King RK-56?
With headphones and the D104, and 575M6 volume turned up to about 20%, I can hear my feet sliding on the floor mat of my truck, and possibly a pin drop on the dash.
Sidenote: I do have an RK-56 on the way! I am from the deep South, and if an RK-56 can make a guy from Vermont, sound like he is from the deep South, what will it make a guy from the deep South sound like? hmmmm, we'll see.
I tried the higher mic gain settings last night after work, and my co-workers said that as long as I avoided feedback and other noise issues, from too high a volume on the power mics, the higher mic gain brought me from loud and clear, to much louder and still clear. The meter is still a decent general reference for me because I can see the similarities in the intensity between a non-power Astatic 636L mic when it's mic gain is near 100% (5 o'clock), and the D104M6B, and 575M6, at slightly lower mic gain settings (3-4 o'clock).
Warning: the meters can vary considerably from one radio to the next. It turns out that the little meters are not quite the precision indicators that I thought they were. Mine seems to be happy, as I bang its head against the right wall of the meter case over and over again, about 40% of the time, but yours might be quite different.
The D104M6B, and the 575M6 do seem to produce a bigger sound and quicker movement of the meter, even with their volume settings below 10%. (mic volume settings above 10% are messy)
I had ended up with a mic gain much lower than that, because of my ingenius, but faulty audio check with a second radio (Cobra 25) and headphones.
Apparently, the close proximity, and possibly poor audio circuit in the listening radio, led me to reduce the General Lee's Mic Gain Auuuddiiiooooo, to an overly low level, because the “Cobra and headphones setup” would produce distorted audio when the General Lee’s mic gain was above 50%. Maybe it was the Cobra, maybe it was RF in the headphones? I was very happy to hear that the much higher audio levels were not distorted on the receiving end, like in the headphone test.
On the way home, while talking with one of my buddies that was using a "MegaTuned" Galaxy 66 (supposedly 40 watts). As we got nearly 12 miles apart with trees in between, and as the powerful General Lee with SuperReceive was grabbing any signal that dared to lift its head above absolute silence, and as the Predator 10K was creating a vortex, as it sucked in, searching for any possible keydowns, a puny little Galaxy 66 voice said, "do you still have a copy on me?" The Mighty SuperWackPacked General Lee with digital echo, and optional variable talkback responded, "your not moving the meter but I can still hear you back there, How am I doing?" The puny voice responded "I'm getting an S7 on you out here!"
Yeah baby!
I’ll have a SuperWackPack, with a 10K on the side please.
(disclaimer: I was pushing more power, but that's part of the game)
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SmallTruckBigRadio
Your welcome Bob...check out my "crazy" new Genera
I was a little bummed at the plain silver look of the New SuperWackPacked General Lee. It seems that much of the magic is hidden inside behind the warranty stickers.
So I wanted to liven things up a bit, and get a better representation of the magic going on inside!
How this? check the (hopefully) attached picture.
from [Please login or register to view this link]
So I wanted to liven things up a bit, and get a better representation of the magic going on inside!
How this? check the (hopefully) attached picture.
from [Please login or register to view this link]
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Mr RadioActive
LOL, guys it wasnt that I was hiding the info! He emailed the same question and I typed him his answer. Then about 10 hours later, I saw the question on the forum. So didnt feel like retyping it, since it really was just a personal question about his mic gain settings, but due to popular demand Ill answer it on here!!!!!
The RF meter on your radio means NOTHING! I can set your rf meter to not move at all during transmit and the radio will work just the same as if when you key up it slams the red hard and then has no swing because of key up.
See what happens is some customers are so dependent on what the rf meter on the radio says, during the alignment the meter is set up higher on purpose. These people think that their radio sounds better if the needles higher. Which is bogus, since that needle has nothing to do with watts at all. Alls that needle should be is a reference. If your radio on high keys 9, then one day its starting to key at 3 then somethings wrong. But a radio that keys 3 right from the box is working fine. But if that radio is now keying 1 then you have a issue.
Some people have to see the needle up high to think there radios working, others dont care and just want to mash the key and talk phat! So if you have a superwackpacked general lee........dont think your radios better or worse because the needle keys different.
One last scoop, if I set your needle at 8 oclock here at the shop. I mean dead center of the 8. When you get it it could read 8.2, 8.5 9, 10, 6 why? Your voltage is different, and even that can affect where the needle keys!
CB shops have long fooled people. They open up a radio and only adjust the meter, and nothing else! But some people will swear it makes them talk better!
The RF meter on your radio means NOTHING! I can set your rf meter to not move at all during transmit and the radio will work just the same as if when you key up it slams the red hard and then has no swing because of key up.
See what happens is some customers are so dependent on what the rf meter on the radio says, during the alignment the meter is set up higher on purpose. These people think that their radio sounds better if the needles higher. Which is bogus, since that needle has nothing to do with watts at all. Alls that needle should be is a reference. If your radio on high keys 9, then one day its starting to key at 3 then somethings wrong. But a radio that keys 3 right from the box is working fine. But if that radio is now keying 1 then you have a issue.
Some people have to see the needle up high to think there radios working, others dont care and just want to mash the key and talk phat! So if you have a superwackpacked general lee........dont think your radios better or worse because the needle keys different.
One last scoop, if I set your needle at 8 oclock here at the shop. I mean dead center of the 8. When you get it it could read 8.2, 8.5 9, 10, 6 why? Your voltage is different, and even that can affect where the needle keys!
CB shops have long fooled people. They open up a radio and only adjust the meter, and nothing else! But some people will swear it makes them talk better!
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stickman
I CAN SHARE INFO ON MY SUPERWACKPACK GENERAL LEE I HAVE THE MIC GAIN ALL THE WAY WITH AN ASTATIC 636L MIC HAVE MY ECHO AT ABOUT 10 O'CLOCK, MY ETONE ABOUT THE SAME, ALL THAT WHILE MY DAVEMADE 1X2 IS DRIVING THAT LEE!!! I MUST SAY IT IS AWESOME. I DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THE METER!!
THANKS
STICKMAN
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SmallTruckBigRadio
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BobOstro61
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BigBopper
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SmallTruckBigRadio
Hmmm,BobOstro61 wrote:I decided that my next radio is going to be the Galaxy DX 95T. Hope I won't be sorry about that decision...
"Echo adjustments are inside the radio", to adjust the echo sound, the bottom cover must be removed. Void the warranty? or can holes be drilled to access the pots?
There is no receive gain pot. A 40dB attenuator switch takes its place. That would bum me out!
Same main circuit board as our DX 2517, DX 93T, DX 48T and DX 45MP
Hmmm...I think I like the feature package on the DX 48T better...
I figured such a full featured radio would do better than this.
Maybe the next new model?
Owning a SuperWackPacked General Lee and hoping your next radio won't disappoint you has been enough for me to give up looking for now.
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Mr RadioActive
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Mr RadioActive
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Glorfendill
Someday
Maybe, just MAYBE, some day when I get my Truck paid off (only a few months down the road now!) and all the tinkering and fiddling with it so it's running good and will stay running good for a long time then I'll have the 300 bucks to drop on a Superwackpack George Washington to fool around on... and get a nice antenna up (or two) and listen to all the truckers as they talk about that little 88 Chevy S-10 blow their ears off...
Until that day.. I guess I'll just have to get my current set-up workin a little better and deal with it.
Until that day.. I guess I'll just have to get my current set-up workin a little better and deal with it.
