Adjusting 146.790 - lowering Rx from 400 to 250

[John Hogenmiller]

BCARS,

I want to see if we can do some additional fine tuning the repeater audio levels. I haven’t change any levels in several months. I think they are pretty good, with the exception of the 146.790. As many know, t he 146.790 requires people with a strong signal to hold the microphone further away or talk quieter. In the past, I made a bunch of changes at once while listening and talking to operators across the different repeaters. So now I’m going to make one change and let people try it for at least a week. If the change is detrimental, I can set it back.

When I talk about the audio levels, these are something like volume knobs. There is a volume knob for receive and one for transmit. Each has a range between 0 and 999. In reality, increments of at least 50 are needed to tell a difference, and most often, increments of 100. So you can think of 0 as 0, and 1000 as “10”.

For the last several months, these are the audio levels. Consider this our baseline. These values have be adjusted separate for each radio type. For instance, the Tx audio level of the 146.790 had to be lowered down to 20 because before users said it was too loud. For the 145.490, people said it was too quiet, so I have it the Tx level at 700. Each change impacts audio going “across” the repeater, and audio going out to other repeaters.

146.790 Rx 400 Tx 020
145.490 Rx 500 Tx 700
224.480 Rx 240 Tx 350
53.15 Rx 240 Tx 600

Tonight, after the net, I lowered the Rx on 146.790 from 400 to 250. These are the new settings as of March 14th, 2023

146.790 Rx 250 Tx 020
145.490 Rx 500 Tx 700
224.480 Rx 240 Tx 350
53.15 Rx 240 Tx 600

Things to check:
Talking into 146.790 for people on the 145.490 - see if you drive the microphone “normal”, or if you still need to hold it further away.
Having a direct conversation between two people on 146.790. Does that still work, or does it lower the audio too much?


Thank you,
John/KB3DFZ