Some of what I've learned in the digital world is that the majority of digital VOIP users who are running digital transceivers, digital interfaces, and “hotspots” fail miserably to properly adjust their mic gain settings properly. The net result is that their VOIP transmissions sound like crap, this problem can be compounded by the crossover technology between digital protocols.

For those that own Yaseu Fusion C4FM transceivers like FTM300‘s, FTM400‘s, and others, the user needs to adjust their mic gain, these transceivers allow you to do that, the majority don’t (it’s in the manual), the net result is that the audio packets, especially DMR, sounds like total crap, consisting of mostly low tone mushy audio packets. I’m not familiar with DMR transceivers, but most rigs today also allow one to adjust mic gain audio.

Every individual speaks differently, everyone needs to adjust how they speak into a microphone. Crossing over between protocols also plays a role in audio quality.

I’ve never been able to figure out why so many hams are afraid to constructively criticize other hams when they continually listen to overdriven audio, don’t worry about hurting the other guys feelings, you’re do him/her a disservice by not informing them that they need to correct their audio.

If you’re a ham that happens to own an oscilloscope, you can monitor your audio, as a matter of fact, just listen to yourself on another transceiver, that’ll give you a clue how good or bad your audio is.

If you marginal into a repeater, node, or hotspot, disconnect, you’re not helping anyone, or communicating effectively when you audio packets are broken up, you’re just making it increasingly harder for everyone else to understand you and tying up the system.