O.k. I'm not above admitting mistakes, but this one really made me laugh. Thanks to QRN for rattling my cage a bit and making me think this over.
I know what ALC does, but for some stupid reason, and for years, I've misunderstood what 'meter deflection' meant. I was thinking that deflection meant it should bounce back from the end of the right side of the meter...
Meter deflection, means any level indicated when the meter is in ALC mode. My Kenwood has a range for ALC and it should be right at the end of the fat ALC bar on the meter on voice peaks. My 857 just has a plain indicator and a few bars on the avg peaks is where that should wind up.
ALC can be looked at as a compressor limiter and having worked for years as a sound engineer, I'm not sure why this confusion even happened with me. Basically it will clip off the peak levels and bring the top end of the dynamic range down to meet the middle as you drive into the ALC circuit.
To get the best talk power/efficiency you want your peaks 'grabbed' by the limiter but you don't want it engaging on your mid level speech or it will make you sound all boxy.
Needless to say I haven't had the ALC set properly on a rig until now... and I've used HF rigs for a long while so this is particularly embarrassing.
So now my Kenwood 680 and the 857 Yaesu are all buttoned up the way they should be and wouldn't ya know it... the Yaesu mic gain settings are much much more even between the modes LOL.
Cracked me up to figure this out.
From what people told me giving audio reports, they couldn't hear much of a difference oddly enough. It may be the nature of my voice or something, but I would have sworn that someone would have complained about overdriven audio before this point. I was basically pounding all my rigs right into the limiting and didn't even know it. Generally you can clearly hear when someone is burying the ALC. Go figure.
Thanks to QRN for making me go back and think my setup over and hopefully this helps someone else.
I know what ALC does, but for some stupid reason, and for years, I've misunderstood what 'meter deflection' meant. I was thinking that deflection meant it should bounce back from the end of the right side of the meter...
Meter deflection, means any level indicated when the meter is in ALC mode. My Kenwood has a range for ALC and it should be right at the end of the fat ALC bar on the meter on voice peaks. My 857 just has a plain indicator and a few bars on the avg peaks is where that should wind up.
ALC can be looked at as a compressor limiter and having worked for years as a sound engineer, I'm not sure why this confusion even happened with me. Basically it will clip off the peak levels and bring the top end of the dynamic range down to meet the middle as you drive into the ALC circuit.
To get the best talk power/efficiency you want your peaks 'grabbed' by the limiter but you don't want it engaging on your mid level speech or it will make you sound all boxy.
Needless to say I haven't had the ALC set properly on a rig until now... and I've used HF rigs for a long while so this is particularly embarrassing.
So now my Kenwood 680 and the 857 Yaesu are all buttoned up the way they should be and wouldn't ya know it... the Yaesu mic gain settings are much much more even between the modes LOL.
Cracked me up to figure this out.
From what people told me giving audio reports, they couldn't hear much of a difference oddly enough. It may be the nature of my voice or something, but I would have sworn that someone would have complained about overdriven audio before this point. I was basically pounding all my rigs right into the limiting and didn't even know it. Generally you can clearly hear when someone is burying the ALC. Go figure.
Thanks to QRN for making me go back and think my setup over and hopefully this helps someone else.