Originally Posted by
WA9SVD
One common mistake is setting the mic gain too high; many operators want and insist upon maximum ALC operation when setting the "mic" gain. GUARANTEED to cause distortion in most cases. ALC should only bump up on scale during voice peaks.
Another common error is to use too much compression. One audio expert told our club that more than 6 dB of compression will actually DOWNGRADE the intelligibility of a signal, so operators should use little if any compression. (Set up the radio for normal operation and normal audio FIRST, and then add a bit of compression, if absolutely necessarily.) Too much compression (aside from causing unnecessary distortion) can also pick up noises as far away as the next room.
That's probably all pretty good advice, but it's not universal. I don't have a 590S but there are many reports of it being "undermodulated" when adjusted per the instructions. Possibly the ALC indicator is simply inaccurate and reports lots of ALC activity when there's actually very little. I really don't know.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw
