ProVoice

[ElroyJetson]

Today I finally found ProVoice talkgroups on a system I listen to. Recently I enabled ProVoice in my radio (P7100, up-to-the-minute firmware and DSP, fully freaked out) so I was able to listen in.

I hadn't heard ProVoice in operation before.

It was interesting to hear it.

I have to say, I like it. There is a distinctive audio quality to it (IMBE quality, to be precise) but the way
it's EQ'ed, it cuts through. Set next to another radio listening to analog talkgroups at the same volume
level, the ProVoice traffic cuts through and is easier to hear clearly than the analog talkgroups, which
I was surprised at.

I can't say how it'll perform in the fringes of the system's coverage area, but where the signal is good,
the audio quality is extremely usable and highly intelligible, even more than analog, which frankly
puzzles me a little bit. But there's no doubt about it to my ears. I don't argue with what I observe
for myself.

Elroy

 

[rescue161]

I listened to some ProVoice talk groups when I was in Texas and they did sound very good. Even better than the digital system that I was monitoring with an Astro Saber.

 

[rmiles]

I listened to some ProVoice talk groups when I was in Texas and they did sound very good. Even better than the digital system that I was monitoring with an Astro Saber.

Well, wouldn’t go that far. The ASTRO Saber is the best 2-way FM radio I’ve ever used. Digital or analog, it doesn’t matter. The AS is the best by far.

I have a P7170 that I use to monitor a local ProVoice EDACS IP TRS. The first time I heard ProVoice digital audio recovered on that radio, my initial response was “What the hell is this”??? I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever heard. Previously, the worst digital codec I ever listened to was Aegis. But that was on an LPE-200 and M-RK. I had previously heard ProVoice on the LPE-200, and thought it sounded very similar to P25 and MUCH better than the P7100.

The speakers Kyocera uses in the P7100 front covers are terrible. The audio produced is weak and extremely tinny. Elroy has devised an elegant way to improve the audio from these speakers, which I’ve heard for myself, but still… I don’t know if it’s because M/A-Com is just too cheap to purchase better speakers or those are the only one that will fit in the front covers, but they have very poor sound reproduction.

Now that I’ve listened to ProVoice on the P7170 for a while, I’ve become more in tune to the sound. But I still have a difficult time discerning what’s coming across the radio in a noisy environment. In short, after listing to it for a while, I think it sounds a lot better, but they really need to invest some major time in reengineering those speakers.

 

[ElroyJetson]

What I recommend is to yank the FINE little speaker out of an M-PD or M-PA and shoehorn it into a speaker-mic for your 7100 or Jaguar and use the speaker-mic. It's far from a perfect solution but
you do get good CLEAR audio out of it.

I haven't actually heard one yet but there's a slightly newer speaker design in the M/A-Com P7200
radios. The front shield is cut out to accept its greater thickness. I'd like to think that it's a substantial
improvement over the stock Foster speaker in a 7100 or Jaguar. (I've only seen one Kyocera speaker
in a Jag or P7100 to date and I'm not even sure that was a standard factory-installed version,
it could have been a prototype.)

If you really wanted to get sick, you could just cut the speaker grille out of the front of your 7100 and
build a little external speaker box on the front of it, plastic welded to the front. Put in any speaker
you like and to heck with what it looks like!

I also agree the Astro Saber is a FINE sounding radio, digital or analog. Unfortunately my own VHF
ASIII has a problem that I haven't gotten around to fixing yet. Bad solder joints on the EEPROM.

XTS5000s, at least the I model, also have excellent receive audio but I'm not really impressed with the
mic audio out of them. It's processed for max intelligibility in a noisy environment but I prefer a
more natural tonal balance.

All else being equal, I choose the radio I'm using by how good it SOUNDS. So at the moment,
the radio I use as my ham rig is a VHF M-PD Voice Guard scan model. It's big and bulky but it's the
best sounding working radio I have, and it's in dead mint condition. 20 years old, new old stock.

Incidentally, does anyone know what's the CORRECT type of software to use to program that radio?
I've got it programmed but programming it was kind of flaky. The radio works fine on every channel
but if I just read the radio back to the computer, I get garbage in some channel fields.

Elroy

 

[rescue161]

Well, wouldn’t go that far. The ASTRO Saber is the best 2-way FM radio I’ve ever used. Digital or analog, it doesn’t matter. The AS is the best by far.

I agree that the AS is the best, but system for system, the ProVoice system sounded better than the Motorola in that same location. My point was that I was using real radios and not comparing the ProVoice radio to a scanner.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Me, neither. I don't own a scanner. Well, that's not true. I have an ancient Regency scanner that's OK
at VHF and UHf frequencies. But it hasn't been plugged in for a few years. I don't own a scanner
that can do the 800 MHz band or any digital mode.

There are no scanners I know of that support ProVoice anyway.


DSP revisions on any radio brand will have a lot to do with audio quality. A M/A-Com radio might
sound better than a Motorola radio if the M/A-Com radio has the better performing DSP software,
or vice versa. The intrinsic audio quality of Motorola radios is higher to start with, too.

I'm a Motorola veteran since the days when the HT220 was still in production and the MT500 was
still a top seller. I learned the Astro Sabers pretty well and went through VSELP and then to IMBE,
with various versions of Securenet being used and tested as well. And I have a VHF M/A-Com
portable that I use to listen to a P25 conventional system whenever I'm out in that county, which is
a couple of times every month. ProVoice sounds a LOT like P25 conventional, both being based on
IMBE, but in my experience, my VHF Astro Saber sounded better on that P25 conventional system
than does my P7100, by a respectable margin.

I'm about to pick up a VHF XTS5000 with P25 options, that is, if I allow myself to spend the money,
and then I'll be able to compare today's Motorola offering to today's M/A-Com offering on the same
system. It'll be interesting to see how they compare.


Elroy

 

[rmiles]

The audio quality of the 5000 is good. For P25 conventional, I'd suggest giving the Thales 25 and E. F. Johnson 5100 a hard look as well. I have both, and the audio quality of the EFJ in particular is VERY good. I like that radio a lot. The Thales 25 also has good audio, and is very slim, sleek and practically every option is programmable right from the keypad of the radio. If you use the programming software, you can load encryption keys into the radio when you load the personality, or you can use a Motorola KVL. For all around performance, I think the Thales 25 is the best VHF P25 conventional radio I've ever used.

 

[pm1072]

Today I finally found ProVoice talkgroups on a system I listen to. Recently I enabled ProVoice in my radio (P7100, up-to-the-minute firmware and DSP, fully freaked out) so I was able to listen in.

I hadn't heard ProVoice in operation before.

It was interesting to hear it.

I have to say, I like it. There is a distinctive audio quality to it (IMBE quality, to be precise) but the way
it's EQ'ed, it cuts through. Set next to another radio listening to analog talkgroups at the same volume
level, the ProVoice traffic cuts through and is easier to hear clearly than the analog talkgroups, which
I was surprised at.

I can't say how it'll perform in the fringes of the system's coverage area, but where the signal is good,
the audio quality is extremely usable and highly intelligible, even more than analog, which frankly
puzzles me a little bit. But there's no doubt about it to my ears. I don't argue with what I observe
for myself.

Elroy

I'm pretty new to the MA/COM stuff, though been monitoring regular EDACS for years now. Just curious, does ProVoice require you to know a specific code to program in to monitor and a radio with ProVoice feature installed, or does it just require the talkgroup that's provoice to be enabled for ProVoice or the radio to be enabled radio-wide for ProVoice option?

From what I understand the old AEGIS digital format has like 10 or 11 possible codes that you would need to know to actually be able to hear traffic?

Let me know how this newer ProVoice stuff works. Much appreciated!!

 

[rmiles]

Never hear that about Aegis, and I can't remember seeing any type of setting like that in the software. For PV, you specify PV as the vocoder under private voice options on the system setup screen, and unencrypted for the voice mode on the groups screen. With that setting, you'll hear TG's that are either PV or analog.

 

[pm1072]

Never hear that about Aegis, and I can't remember seeing any type of setting like that in the software. For PV, you specify PV as the vocoder under private voice options on the system setup screen, and unencrypted for the voice mode on the groups screen. With that setting, you'll hear TG's that are either PV or analog.

Thanks for the information. I'm bet I was not the only one that was wondering about settings.

 

[w0fg]

Unencrypted AEGIS doesn't require any special codes, just the proper menu choices in Programmer.

 

[pm1072]

Unencrypted AEGIS doesn't require any special codes, just the proper menu choices in Programmer.

Yeah a friend of mine tried to crossband over channel 15 (Benton Co.) to my Aegis portable on UHF Aegis channel and we still heard hash, so no doubt that channels is AEGIS encrypted. So must require the correct codes and not sure if MA/COM is like Motorola where it's a snowballs chance in H#^^ of finding it. lol.

 

[mitaux8030]

Actually if you're hearing hash, it means that you've not programmed the Aegis bits in your radio correctly.
If you select unencrypted Aegis in your radio and it encounters encrypted Aegis, the audio is muted, so you hear nothing.

Theres several things that you need to check / get right before Aegis all works. Plus if all that still doesn't work, in digital voice options, you can also try inverting the TX & RX polarity too - but thats the only thing you could try.

If what you are attempting to receive is indeed encrypted, then its game over for sure. The GE incarnation of encryption is even stronger than Motorolas, and stronger still if the user modifies the CUE data bits too - it effectively adds yet more encryption bits.