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Do APX radios have volume normalization/audio AGC?

ErikSwan

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I have a Unication G5 that I use to monitor my local P25 system. It's a great radio, but my biggest complaint about using it is that different users have vastly different volume levels. At a given knob volume level, some users on some talkgroups will be so quiet they are almost unreadable, while other users are almost painfully loud.

Listening comfortably on the G5 requires a lot of manual volume level management to increase volume when quiet users are transmitting and decrease it when a loud user comes across so it's not painfully loud.

Do Motorola APX radios have a feature that normalizes received audio (basically an AGC for the final audio signal), so that transmissions come in at a relatively consistent volume?

I'm not seriously considering getting an APX for NAS, mostly because it will be very expensive and in many ways more limited than my existing G5, but I'm curious to know whether professional P25 radios have such a feature. I imagine it would be critical for a professional public safety radio where properly hearing transmissions is critical, but I did some searching and I've never seen any explicit mention of it.

If they do have such a feature, is it a built-in feature or is it an add-on option added to the codeplug (and if so what is the name of it)?

I am aware that there seem to be some flashport options that improve audio quality on the transmitting end (e.g. QA09006 Adaptive Noise Suppression and what Motorola calls the "Adaptive Audio Engine"), but if these are in use on the radios on my system, they don't seem to be sufficient in normalizing audio levels because there are still big differences when I monitor with both sdrtrunk and my G5. I figure there must be a feature that normalizes audio on the receive end as well otherwise I would assume that the actual public safety users would be complaining about the differences in audio levels and having to manually adjust the volume all the time.

Thanks!
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Same problem with BCD536HP. There is no control of modulation envelope. It is random and annoying. Sometimes dispatchers are very muffled yet loud. Seems to track the fast talkers.

"I have a Unication G5 that I use to monitor my local P25 system. It's a great radio, but my biggest complaint about using it is that different users have vastly different volume levels. At a given knob volume level, some users on some talkgroups will be so quiet they are almost unreadable, while other users are almost painfully loud."
 

KG4INW

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Motorola has this feature but only for recent TRBO radios. They call it RX Audio Leveling and it works very well but for reasons that have never been articulated (at least not that I've ever heard), Astro radios don't have this feature. It would definitely be a benefit!
 

ErikSwan

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Jun 27, 2023
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Boise, Idaho
I'm not here to dig at Motorola, but I'm shocked this isn't a feature in the leading professional public safety radio. It's not crazy technology or anything, audio compression and AGC has been around for probably a century now and could probably be implemented extremely easily on the DSP that's already in the radio.

I just assumed they already had it given the critical need to properly understand transmissions in an emergency under a wide variety of environments on both the transmitting and receiving end. It seems like such an obvious feature.

Well, at least I feel better knowing that I'm not missing anything with my G5.
 

KevinC

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Does any other manufacturer offer this in P25? Because yes, it's very annoying, whether it's an APX or Unication or a scanner.
 

billy2047

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my biggest complaint about using it is that different users have vastly different volume levels
We're having similar issue our dispatchers like to whisper and officers like to yell in their mic

Dispatcher
: Alpha one ten fourteen
Officer: I'M TEN FOUR
Others: RIP eardrum

Dispatchers don't seem to mind because I believe they can adjust unit's volume at the console to compensate but for scanners or even field users this volume fluctuation is annoying.
 
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