Narrow and Wide Band

[WSCU736]

On my radio the other day. I was listening to one of the local repeaters. But some how I turned it to Narrow band and the signal improved and it got louder. Can someone explain why this happens? Remember I am fairly new. Dont be too harsh.

[kidphc]

On my radio the other day. I was listening to one of the local repeaters. But some how I turned it to Narrow band and the signal improved and it got louder. Can someone explain why this happens? Remember I am fairly new. Dont be too harsh.

Maybe the repeater is set to narrow?

Narrow is more effiecient in power, and bandwidth utilization. Radio operators generally don't like it because when compared to wide band it loses in audio fidelity.

You should hear narrow digital. Sounds like everyone has a stuffy nose and is in a tank of water. Get p25 trunked encrypted, aggravating, due to all the compression. If your intrested in how bad it is ask a FD or PD to let you listen to dispatch for a second.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[WRXB215]

As @kidphc indicated, matching the bandwidth of the repeater is always going to give you better results than a mismatch.

[dosw]

Consider the following graphic:

In this graphic you'll see a thin red line. That's just where my SDR is tuned to listen. And then a wider red vertical band. That's how wide in terms of frequency bandwidth I have my SDR software set to listen.

Within that faint red band is a jiggly band that grows wider and narrower. The bottom is the beginning of a transmission, and the top is the end of the transmission, in time.

If I have my listening radio set to narrowband, that's similar to the faint red band being narrower. If that were the case, you would see some of the transmitted signal falling outside of the band in which I'm listening. So we're losing information. However, that also means that more of the faint red band is filled by radio waves (the jiggly band), so it will sound louder, though more distorted.

[nokones]

22 hours ago, kidphc said:

Maybe the repeater is set to narrow?

Narrow is more effiecient in power, and bandwidth utilization. Radio operators generally don't like it because when compared to wide band it loses in audio fidelity.

You should hear narrow digital. Sounds like everyone has a stuffy nose and is in a tank of water. Get p25 trunked encrypted, aggravating, due to all the compression. If your intrested in how bad it is ask a FD or PD to let you listen to dispatch for a second.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
 

When you are focused with the task at hand in a law enforcement environment you really don't care what the audio sounds like as long you can hear the audio. The audio quality on a narrowband public safety channel is not a critical factor or if it is stereophonic or not.

Try listening to a simulcast channel when you are in a simulcast overlap area.

[kidphc]

When you are focused with the task at hand in a law enforcement environment you really don't care what the audio sounds like as long you can hear the audio. The audio quality on a narrowband public safety channel is not a critical factor or if it is stereophonic or not.
Try listening to a simulcast channel when you are in a simulcast overlap area.

I agree. The quality of the audio fidelity of the message means diddly as long as the message is clear and copy able.

You have to admit though. It is border line abrasive sounding especially when compared to wideband digital/fm.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[WRTH852]

When you went from Wide channel to Narrow,  that changes how many KHz the radio is expecting for full channel signal deviation  that it receives and, it also changes how wide the signal is that you transmit (more on tx later).     So, if the radio is set to operate wide, and then it is switched to narrow, the freq. swing (deviation) of the signal will give a larger audio output for a given deviation because now the radio is set so  that the full channel deviation  is less freq. shift than  it was before when the channel width was larger.   If both the radio and the received  signal are using narrow modulation then it will sound "correct" for volume.   If you radio is on wide, but the other radio is transmitting with narrow deviation, the audio will be low, because full modulation of the narrow transmitted signal  is only about 1/2 of what the radio is set for to generate full loudness audio.   

If the your radio is on Narrow and is receiving a Wide signal then the deviation can swing outside the receive bandwidth your radio is set for.  This will cause loud signals to distort as they swing outside of the Rx pass band.    On transmit when you are set to narrow channels your audio is only deviating your signal at full audio for a narrow channel which is about 1/2 what it would be if you were transmitting the same audio using a wide channel setting.    

I hope that helps explain it,  I don't know that this is a very clear way of saying what I am trying to get across.