Intermittent Vox with 6500 and 2.8.1

Richard W2FBS

Is anybody else having trouble with the vox dropping out intermittently? I use vox constantly when I am net control every morning. I will be talking and it will quit in mid-sentence. I let my voice drop for a second and it comes back or sometimes I have to toggle the vox switch on and off. Using a 6500 with 2.8.1 software. Is this being addressed?

Martin_G4ENZ

I have the same symptom with a 6400 and v3.3.33, I am hoping for a fix in the next release of SmartSDR.

73 Martin

Sergey KN7K

Richard, you can search VOX dropping issue in that forum. It is a bug and reported many times. Unfortunately it is not fixed yet.

KN7K

Mike-VA3MW

It should be fixed in the next release.

Chuck

Has anyone found any way around this. I really don't want to spend this weekend screaming into the maxed out VOX mic to transmit. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

6700, v3.3.33

Richard W2FBS

Fixed in the next release! Do you not beta-test all features before putting out a new release? Vox is important to me, a net control, and I am sure many others. It is not a feature used by the few, which is what you seem to introduce every time. I don't need multi-operator ability nor do I need to run my rig remotely. What I do need is a transceiver that has features that work, all the time, not some of the time. I am very close to going back to Kenwood.

Mike-VA3MW

Hi Richard

Yes, we do a lot of Q/A testing with a large group of hams with a variety of different stations, hardware and operating preferences.

In the case of VOX, we knew it existed (you can call this the symptom), but we were never able to recreate it in a Lab environment with the right tools to actually capture the root cause.

Through some hard work by various operators, we were able to recreate the problem in a controlled environment and debug the problem to the root cause and then fix it.

In the software world, it can be hard to fix something if development engineers are not able to recreate the failure 100% of the time. It can be frustrating to both the end user and the engineering team.

On the last update I received, the plan is to release the vox fix in 3.4, and it will be bundled with many other items. All of which have to pass a Q/A process.

Thanks for your patience. 73

Charlie N5WE

> @"Richard W2FBS" said:
> Is anybody else having trouble with the vox dropping out intermittently? I use vox constantly when I am net control every morning. I will be talking and it will quit in mid-sentence. I let my voice drop for a second and it comes back or sometimes I have to toggle the vox switch on and off. Using a 6500 with 2.8.1 software. Is this being addressed?

Not so much drop outs, but occasionally when it does drop (normally or otherwise), its like an anti-vox kicks in and unless you're dead quiet in the background, it won't rekey the radio. You have to pause (including RX audio) for at least a full 1-2 seconds, then when you begin to speak again it will key the rig. You can start a count into the mic and without that pause, the rig won't rekey.

Richard W2FBS

Well, After promises to fix this vox dropout in the last 3 new versions, it has not been done. For those of us who are net controls and use vox all the time, it is a big problem.