Recently picked up Baofeng dm-5r radios

[teufler]

I know they are Tier 1, thats not the question. I have noticed a distinctive voice lag, when talking radio to radio in digital. Analog, voice comes in instantly but digital, maybe 1/2 sec or longer lag from radio to radio,.Don't know if this is normal or I have a setting wrong. Encryption settings are good, Changed just 1 code, 123456789A to 123456789B and the radios would not talk to each other. I have other DMR radios so these are the new ones to explore and learn with The dual band is interesting .Have anyone else seen or heard this lag from radio to radio?

 

[KG4INW]

If you're talking about holding two radios, one in each hand, and talking between them, the delay is normal. Audio has to be processed on both units, analog to digital and then digital back to analog. All digital radios are like that.

 

[jwt873]

Yes.. A to D and then back again.. I've seen this with D-Star radios as well.

 

[kc0kp]

I know they are Tier 1, thats not the question. I have noticed a distinctive voice lag, when talking radio to radio in digital. Analog, voice comes in instantly but digital, maybe 1/2 sec or longer lag from radio to radio,.Don't know if this is normal or I have a setting wrong. Encryption settings are good, Changed just 1 code, 123456789A to 123456789B and the radios would not talk to each other. I have other DMR radios so these are the new ones to explore and learn with The dual band is interesting .Have anyone else seen or heard this lag from radio to radio?

Normal for all digital modes25, Fusion, DStar, DMR. System latency is an important training issue for public safety people converting to digital. They expect everything real time and when they see a person talking in their own radio and the sound is delayed coming out of their radio, it looks like a poorly dubbed foreign film. It can be disconcerting when first encountered.
Craig

 

[jonwienke]

Have anyone else seen or heard this lag from radio to radio?

All digital radios do this to some extent, due to buffering that occurs when converting analog to digital and back. The digital data is sent in discrete chunks, so the sending radio has to ingest enough audio to generate a complete chunk of data before it starts sending the data. Then the receiving radio has to receive the complete chunk of data before it can start decoding it and converting it back to analog audio.

The total lag time is the sum of the TX buffering and encoding time, the time it takes to TX a chunk of digital data, and the RX buffering and decoding time, as well as the digital signaling used to set up a call (which contains the TX radio ID, talkgroup ID, and possibly other data such as GPS coordinates, encryption flag, encryption key ID, system time, etc.) Lag is commonly about 1/2-second, but may vary depending on the exact digital format and the call setup data.

 

[cmdrwill]

Slow crappy Micro processor.....

 

[jonwienke]

Slow crappy Micro processor.....

You get the same delay from Motorola and Yaesu radios, genius.

 

[N4GIX]

You get the same delay from Motorola and Yaesu radios, genius.

I've certainly noticed that as well. My XPR7550 has identical "lag time" as my several MD-380 radios.

 

[teufler]

Thanks all for explaining. It was like a digital repeater that stores you audio then re-broadcasts. Just odd though if two units were far apart, you would not notice the lag. I guess that explains how when the county broadcasts on a talk group, sometimes they broadcast on analog too. Ham radio monitors the vhf and the scanner monitors the digital tg. The digital always sounds like an echo because it broadcasts slightly later than the vhf analog. Not much later but definately behind in audio.

 

[N4GIX]

The lag really becomes noticeable on DMR when talking cross-country via the internet! In addition to the DA encode/decode 'lag' is added the network latency which can sometimes delay things for up to several seconds!

That is why it is critical that folks using DMR allow several seconds before attempting to reply. This allows enough of a gap for everyone in the network on the same talk group to finish hearing the previous transmission! :lol: