Digital audio is harsh

[ryradio]

I am new to listening to trunking systems on a digital scanner. My area is now P25II. Some of the transmissions sound very "digital" or "robot-like" and sometimes garbled beyond recognition....

Is this something I need to get used to?

or is there some sort of settings I need to implement in my scanner (Uniden 996P2) to get better sound?

Are the ones that sound esp. garbled or bad to my ears fringe frequencies or shouldn't they all sound the same if they are coming from the same tower?

 

[INDY72]

LSM welcome to P25 Simulcast distortion.

Sent from my LG-K330 using Tapatalk

 

[IAmSixNine]

Depending on your scanner you should have the option to change the way the unit processes the info.
Most scanners are set to auto, on my Uniden BCD436HP i have most of my DMR and P25 systems set to Manual and 8. I believe its under Digital Threshold Manual / Auto.

 

[ryradio]

What will that function do?

 

[IAmSixNine]

P25 audio decode level adjustment - The RadioReference Wiki

 

[ofd8001]

I can't explain the technical nuances of what happens with the different settings, but I can say they do make a difference with simulcast systems.

You will find these settings in the Sentinel Favorites List editor. Click on the site, then go to the Options tab and you'll see drop down boxes for Digital Threshold Mode and Digital Threshold Level.

I too use Manual instead of Auto. I suspect in Auto the scanner is continuously trying to perfect the bit errorr rate, which is something that can't be perfected in a short time. For me I use 7 as the Digital Threshold Level, but you'll have to experiment with what works best for you. Also, sometimes setting Site Attenuation to On can be helpful.

While these settings make things as good as they can be, I still get garble from time to time on my simulcast system.

 

[br0adband]

The codecs being used by modern digital radio communications systems like P25 Phase I and Phase II, DMR, NXDN, and so on are simply garbage to my ears. Yes, I can make out what they're saying most of the time but not always, and the sheer amount of noise - to me anything that isn't the voice is noise so that means the anti-aliasing that happens because of the codecs in use, almost reminds one of a heterodyne effect sometimes mixed with slapback reverb resampled twice over basically and then halving the sampling rate on top of that.

Haven't heard a modern digital codec for radio comms that sounds good but that's just my opinion on the situation. Analog just sounds better but obviously it's going the way of the Dodo bird someday. Sure it'll be many many years before that happens and there will always be holdouts for that tech but it won't last unfortunately.