1. Buying a new stock rig and putting on a power mic will give me a lot of good audio.
False
All rigs have ALC/AMC (Automatic Level Control/Automatic Modulation Control) limiters in them. This is to prevent distortion and/or over modulation. The ALC circuits are cheap using only a few components. These limiters should have been designed to be used when needed – on voice peaks (if needed) and at the point of over modulation only. Instead, the circuit is on all the time regardless of your audio level. Buying a power mic and expecting it to be powerful is not going to happen. Asking for a radio check doesn’t do it because you are listening to someone who does not necessarily know themselves. There are a lot of CB’ers out there who are not really “On”, especially for the last 15 years. You may want to question the person who told you that you sound good. This would be a good test to see if they really know. Putting on a new rig right out of the box with a power mic you will probably notice only about ½ watt of upward due to the limiters. Ask someone how you sound and if they say “Good” then you can’t trust them. You know your limiters are still within the rig. You know you sound compressed. During a radio check, most of the time you will get a response telling you, that you sound good, even at the slightest hint of static. During a radio check, the usual replies are: "I'll turn down the power mic, how's that?" or “No one ever told me that before”, Ah and the famous one – "It must be the battery".
Let’s break this down.
"I'll turn down the power mic, how's that?".
Why did you do that? Why did you buy a power only to have to turn it down to a stock mic level or lower? Turning down a power mic defeats the purpose of buying one. What you're actually turning down is the compression and your audio. You were never loud to begin with.
"No one ever told me that before.".
Either they did but you didn't want to hear it or you believe that a new rig & power mic should sound good regardless without any further knowledge. It's new so it HAS to sound good otherwise they wouldn’t have made it.
Wrong
Most people have no idea what they or anyone sounds like or should sound like especially with a new rig right out of the box. They hear their friends sound tinny, low, compressed and noisy voice and figure that’s the way it is. Over time they get used to it regardless of how they hear their friends. They claim "It sounds good". They really don't know or they don't want to insult the other party. Sometimes they just don’t want to know. In actuality it sounds like your talking to them on a cheap cordless phone. "Phony audio". When they change the mic and ask the same person how it sounds, 50% of the time you will hear that they like the first mic better with all the compression, etc. That’s because they’re used to hearing that person using the first mic. regardless of the compression. People don’t know and side with what they are used to listening to.
"It must be the battery".
This is the most commonly one used. It’s never the battery unless the battery is dead. At that point there’s no audio. I always told everyone to throw the battery away in my can. After a while I had a stack of batteries and they were all good. For years, I never bought a battery and always used the ones that people claimed “It must be the battery”. You hear that persons compression. You know it's not the battery and you know this is not a natural sound. There’s no reason why you should sound like that on the air. You don't sound like that in person do you?. The person transmitting has no idea unless he trades bases with the other person to hear it for himself. Some of the times, being that they don’t know what to listen for, will say that there’s nothing wrong with the way their base sounds. They replace the battery and of course the audio and compression are the same. They don't know what to say next except that they will have the radio checked out. After it's checked out and was told that it's working fine, they still believe they sound good. The person who checked out the radio only checks its operation as stock. It's real simple. The audio limiters, AMC's/ALC's are still in the rig and should be removed. Some are set too high preventing you from modulating over 85% and as for the Panasonic rigs, nothing over 65%. It's in the manual folks! The more compression you have the lower the punch and the lower the audio. When the compression level is extremely high, your audio will "Pop" on voice peaks. Remember "Poppy" from Clifton? He had a Panasonic. The people who had no idea what audio should sound like gave him the handle "Poppy" and didn’t know any better and accepted it! The higher you turn up the mic, or the louder you talk, the more compression you will have. If you’re going to run a stock rig then buying a power mic is a total waste of time & money. You will never have the punch or loudness that your trying to achieve so "Get it Modified". “Stock is a Block" ...... "Modified is World Wide”.
You’re looking to sound good and not like a cheap compressed cordless phone. The best way is to hear your own audio is with headphones from a wattmeter or a local receiver. This way you can hear the before and after difference when the limiters have been removed. Your stereo doesn’t have ALC's nor do PA systems. Remember nothing is being super charged as removing the limiters only brings your audio back to normal. From there you can use a power mic to sound louder and at the same time you will notice your upward modulation increase to where it should be.
Also beware of the power mics with built in ALC’s. Check the schematic as they are easy to spot.
"How's my upward with this new radio and power mic?".
There will hardly be any upward as the limiters have de-gained your audio which prevents upward. When the ALC's are removed, you will notice an upward swing and "normal" audio will be heard as this is what you should sound like.
2. Noise canceling power mics.
This is one of those stupid gimmicks like those motorized bikes you used to use in your room to lose weight. You turn on the switch, and the motor pedals for you. This mic is a power mic and will amplify any noise made. Noise canceling? How? Where? I've done a few tests with these. They operate just like a normal power mic. There are no special circuits in them electronically or mechanically. The theory sounds good but it is only an advertising ploy. These mics have a piece of rubber on the top where you talk which is only 1/4" high supposedly to shroud out external noise. A megaphone would work better.
3. Peek Reading Watt meters.
If your stock rig says you’re putting out 4 watts on AM with upward to 10, 20 or 30 watts, either you have a peek reading meter or the meter is not properly calibrated. You are really not doing that kind of wattage. Let’s say your meter displays upward to 16 watts, then we should see about 6db of upward on all of our S meters and we don’t see that. We never see that. It means that if you really do have upward to 16 watts then you MUST be drawing an extra 2.5amps when you talk, let alone the approximate 2-3 amps required just for the carrier. It also means that you must have at least an 18 watt modulator (minus losses) to produce 16 watts of upward. They have never put high power modulators like that in any CB radio. If you have a 5 watt input transmitter, the audio power required is ½ the carrier design which means you only have a 2.5 watt modulator. So to hear someone say that they are putting out 16 watts RMS of upward, just isn’t true.
If someone says that they are putting out 30 watts of upward, then they must see about 4.6 amps extra from the supply when they talk. In turn, we would see about 8.9db of upward on our S meters and we don’t and the final certainly wouldn’t do it. The average 2SC1307 final is rated at 25 watts input. Your input power must be developed first in order to produce ½ the output. This can be seen on your power supply current meter. At 30 watts of upward that means you are drawing approx. 2.5 amps just for the carrier and approx. 4.6 amps extra when you talk and all on their little Radio Shack 3 amp power supply. It’s just not going to happen. The average transmit current draw on a stock rig is approx 2.5 amps and only up to approx 2.85 amps during audio due to the ALC’s. If the ALC’s are taken out, your audio draw current will increase to as much as 2 amps extra.
4. I can run a beam that has hollow elements but if I use a linear, the elements must be of solid aluminum.
False
Due to the “skin affect”, most of the current will radiate on the outside of the element. This cuts down on manufacturing and shipping costs as solid elements will only make the beams heavier. The only thing I could think of why solid elements should be used is for high power applications where you’re at the end of the power rating of the beam and solid elements would prevent the elements to heat up as solid elements would act as a heat sink.
5. I can hook up my rig using correct or incorrect polarity to my battery or power supply.
False
Hopefully you haven’t blown the fuse and if you did, replaced the proper one with a 30amp fuse. How I can remember that famous line “That’s all I had”. Using the wrong fuse especially using one with a higher rating could cause a melt down. I’ve also seen the blown fuse wrapped in aluminum foil too! There’s one thing you can do and that is to install a full wave bridge in the rig so polarity doesn’t mean anything. The only set back about that is your rig isn’t operating on 13.8V anymore. Due to the 2 diodes in forward bias, the operating voltage is now only 12.6V. This cuts down on your power output a little.
The better way to go is to install one big diode in series with the positive line. The drop is lower and if you reverse polarity and the rig wouldn’t turn on at all indicating that you did it backwards again.
6. Miscellaneous:
Cobra may have made a good 148GTL but couldn’t spell to save their life! Who is “Dynamike”? Who is “Mike Gain”?
