A SSDR Holliday Wish For 2020

Me too!  Amen!

Some word from Flex on the status would be courteous.

Don't hold your breath ;)

Surely you jest paying for a new major version for bug fix's with Version 3 less then a year old and only on it's second revision?

That's why I waited to update until it's right for me.

The last main version upgrade was Sept 17 2019. Only a few months ago. I would look for a release around the new year. But then again depending on any unexpected problems. Just my thoughts.

I hope so. I have had money burning a hole in my pocket since V3 came out in hope that flexradio will ADD THE ON/OFF SWITCH TO THE PROFILE AUTOSAVE "FEATURE".

Bill, the fix is at most 4 lines of code: 1) mute the speakers, 2) dump the mic buffer, 3) enable the mic, and 4) dump the speaker buffer. That effort is hardly "thousands of dollars", lol! Good grief, if that was actually the case, Flex would never be able to afford to devote any effort to programming at all!

And with that said, here's the relevant portion of the text of my Help Desk ticket, I'm only posting it here because you want to replicate the problem:

I have a 6300 running SSDR 2.1.33 in a quiet shack, used mostly for phone (AM or SSB) QSOs.

Whenever I'm listening thru my shack speakers (plugged into the speaker jack on the back of the radio) and I press the PTT, the last fraction of a second of whatever sound was coming from the speakers (usually just band noise) is picked up by the mic and gets transmitted over the air, resulting in a short but strong "psst" noise being sent over the air at the beginning of every transmission.

I only became aware of the problem after I received several reports from other listeners who were hearing the "psst" whenever I transmit.  So I recorded a bit of my own transmission, and I can hear it clearly in the recording.

The problem occurs regardless of whether I'm using the factory mic or my AT2035 ( the problem is much more pronounced when using the AT2035, as it's much more sensitive than the factory mic, read more on that below), and regardless of which version of SSDR (V1 or V2) I’m using.

The problem occurs only when I'm listening to the radio thru the speakers.  It doesn't occur when the speaker volume is turned all the way down, and it doesn't occur when I'm using my headphones instead of the speakers.  So it’s evident to me that the mic is picking up whatever sounds are coming out of the speakers at the instant I press the PTT. If I’ve got the speaker volume turned up, or if I’m using a more sensitive mic, the “psst” on transmit is louder.

Another local ham was able to replicate the problem at his QTH on his 6600M, both while running SSDR 2.1.33 on his Windows machine and while running dogparkSDR on his Mac, so the problem exists across different Flex hardware and software platforms.

The problem can be reproduced by following these steps:

1)  Tune to an unused portion of the 40 or 80 meter band.

2)  Turn the speaker volume up such that a good amount of band noise is emanating from the speaker.

3)  Position the mic directly in front of the speaker.  If you’re using a dynamic mic or the factory mic, turn the mic gain all the way up (to emulate the sensitivity of a large diaphragm condenser mic).

4)  Press the Record button in SSDR (don't press the PTT switch on the mic yet).

5)  A couple of seconds after the recording starts, press the PTT switch on the mic.  Do not speak, but simply record a couple of seconds of ambient silence (the speaker should be muted while the PTT is pressed).

6)  Release the PTT switch.  The speaker should resume producing band noise.  Do NOT stop recording.

7)  After a couple more seconds, press the PTT switch again.  The speaker should go to mute again. Continue recording for a couple more seconds.

8)  Release the PTT switch, then stop the recording.

Now playback the recording.  At each point in the recording where you had pressed the PTT switch, you'll hear a "psst" for a fraction of a second, followed by silence.  The “psst” is what other listeners are telling me they’re hearing at the beginning of every one of my transmissions whenever I’m running speakers in the shack.

As a comparison, try performing the same test again, but this time turn the speaker volume all the way down, such that there is only silence in the shack.  Upon playback of that recording, you will hear no "psst" anywhere in the recording (don't forget to turn the speaker volume back up before playing back the recording), which is conclusive evidence that the "psst" in the earlier recording was caused by what the mic was hearing from the live speakers at the instant the PTT was pushed.

The problem exists regardless of whether any DSP is engaged in SSDR (TX/RX EQ, PROC or DEXP).

The problem may be caused by either or both of the following conditions, if they exist:

1. There is a buffer in the mic audio stream that should be getting fully flushed the instant the PTT is pressed but it isn’t getting flushed, so the sounds the mic was picking up prior to the PPT being pressed are being sent down the audio stream and transmitted, or

2. The speakers aren't being muted at the instant the PTT is pressed, so there is a fraction of a second during which sound is still coming out of the speaker after the PTT is pressed, and the mic is picking that up.

From an operational standpoint, neither of those conditions should exist.  Immediately upon the PTT being pressed, any mic buffer should be completely flushed and the speakers should be muted.  Failure to perform either of those actions will produce exactly the results I’m observing.

FWIW, I’ve determined from experimentation that I can effectively mask the problem by setting the TX Delay to 150 milliseconds (but that’s an inadvisable solution and shouldn’t be necessary in any case).

I had a similar thing happen here. Keying the mic with no audio caused a hiss to be transmitted. The exact same thing would happen when I unkeyed the mic. The noise was bad enough that I could watch the amp transmit it into a dummy load and see it in SSDR. I changed something in SSDR and that cured it. It's been well over a year since and I can't recall exactly what it was but I will try to recreate it. Maybe 20db boost, mic selected as input, or something in windows sound selection.

I don't know the exact amount this change would cost of course. But it would not be cheap. Nothing done in SSDR is inexpensive. And you and I have no idea how much code is used, or what other things it may effect in changing it. Let alone the weeks of testing every change needs. So if the complaints are few I understand why Flex would not target this as an very important change. Perhaps, it would be nice sort of thing.

Question, is it still noticeable when the mic is away from the mic?
I will test this hear. The people I talk to every day are very picky on audio and no one has mentioned it, so they are not hearing it.
Good thing for you changing the PTT timing works.

I have tried many times to cause this and I can't. I hear nothing at all when the PTT is pressed.
John, what radio are you using, that this also happens?

Bill the radio is a 6700 and at the time I was using SSDR 249.

Mark, I've been trying to duplicate my old issue here without success. I do recall that it happened on the mic profiles I created and when I used the default FHM-1 profile the problem was gone. That actually took me a while to discover. At that point I started to investigate the settings in my profiles and what I ended up doing was starting with the FHM-1 profile and made changes to it. In other words, I started fresh and worked off the FHM-1 profile, made changes, and then saved it. Today I am using SSDR 317 and can't seem to duplicate that hiss.

That's funny.