XTS 5000 Voice announcement crackling

[KJ6PNN]

Hmm. It's starting to sound more like maybe the VCO or TX RF Power Amplifier module may be voltage-sensitive. If it still does it after alignment and FW update, you may have a bad RF deck...

Dang, Ok.

Just curious, how would either of those affect the channel announcement? Isn't CH announcement just playing an audio file?

I'm really suspicious of that battery. Two RF deck issues in a row.

 

[KJ6PNN]

OK, so the plot thickens ;-)

I just discovered that it only does it when the two position switch is in the left position (Which I have set to PL defeat)

So how would PL defeat play into this?

Once I can get back on my Programming PC (It's in pieces on my bench) I will try setting the ABC to PL defeat, and the two-position to blank, to see if it's the switch or PL defeat.

Matt

 

[moetorola]

Try setting your Channel Announcement Priority to High, and see if that has an effect.

 

[PSEhub]

Did you use text to speech or a recording done right into a recording software in the native rate (8000Hz)? I've had problems taking files down unless it is a good transcoder that truly re-encodes to the 8000Hz PCM wav format. Just changing a 44100 file to 8000 can be problematic in "creation" type softwares like audacity. Use a real transcoder like sox, NCH Switch Sound Converter, etc. I work a lot with SIP PBX's with ivr's so I have seen good and bad transcoders for these lower rates. I prefer either of the before mentioned.

What can happen is the sound file will sometimes be ok, but if certain ones are overmodulated (as mentioned by MotFan) or have poor trancoding, the CPS just can't compensate enough resulting in a bad file in the radio.

Also, make sure your PC is not under a lot of load either CPU or on the usb bus during the transcoding.

Do you have another XTS you could try encoding the files with and then load them into the problematic one?

Are you using serial or usb?

 

[KJ6PNN]

Ok. Update guys.

I had the firmware upgraded (Legit IButton) and aligned. The alignment did fix the deviation issues. Here are the current symptoms:

Radio voice announcement still crackles on power on, but only with the PL defeat switch on. It no longer does it on channel change after power on.

Radio does not exhibit power on voice announcement crackling if the PL defeat switch is set to off.

On a channel with a transmit PL tone, radio transmits loud static/white-noise for the first few seconds of transmit, and intermittently after that. Since the radio got aligned, I assume this is in the audio, and not the signal.

On a channel with no Transmit PL tone, it does not exhibit the above "noise in audio" behavior.

Any ideas are appreciated.

Thanks!

Matt

 

[HA5BRG]

I am having almost the same issue with a friend's XTS5000 radio. The radio has the latest host + dsp. THe channel announcement plays nicely, everything is fine until the announcement file ends. At the end of every CA that the radio plays there is a big crack (like a worn out PTT button from the mid 1980s).

 

[JMR061]

What was used to create the audio file?

 

[HA5BRG]

It was an application like AT&T Text Aloud. Then the files were converted with Windows XP's default sndrec32.exe application to 16 bit/mono/8 kHz files. All the files sound natural when played with (for example) Winamp. No cracklings at the end of the files.

 

[PSEhub]

I've never trusted sndrec32 for an application like this. I would still bet that its an encoding issue such that when the CPS / radio convert the files to native format, that is where it goes wrong. Playing the original 16 bit 8 khz doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[HA5BRG]

Hm. Shall I try GoldWave? It is old but gold. Or maybe Audacity?

 

[HA5BRG]

Our trusted member, JMR061 was absolutely right The windows-default sndrec32 is a big piece of sh*t. Files are played nicely when I convert them with Audacity.

Thank you for the advice!

 

[Alpha]

I'm a big fan of GoldWave too, it's a very nice, easy to use package. Audacity is also very nice and reliable, and cross-platform if you're a Linux fan. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that was the problem but congratulations on figuring it out! Microsoft makes things that play well with other MS products but sometimes are not completely compatible with the rest of the world

 

[PSEhub]

Glad it worked out. Steering clear of sndrec32 is usually not a bad thing if your not going straight to another Microsoft application.