On Feb 23, 9:12*pm, wrote:
On Feb 23, 9:50*pm, bpnjensen wrote:

I was home sick today, so I was listening to V. Nigeria on 15,120 KHz
from about 2000 to 2100z. *A potent signal to say the least, would
have been easy armchair copy except for one thing - their audio is
terrible. *The sound is either muffled, or overmodulated, or the high
tones are omitted, or something, but the distortion makes an otherwise
great African signal almost unlistenable much of the time. *Any ideas
what their problem might be?

Thanks,
Bruce Jensen

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *This is a problem they had for a long
time. *My guess : * equalization is way overdone. *The low frequencies
are dominant and human speech sounds like rumbling elephants. Some
D.Welle transmissions used a similar technique over the years. *May be
V.of Nigeria is doing the same. On the other hand, overmodulation may
cause something very similar,perhaps. *It does make extended listening
very
uncomfortable.
Just checked their live audio stream *on the website and even that was
not that great. The highs are attenuated significantly above 6KHz or
so,and there is an annoying heterodyne[!] that is an obvious porblem
in the studio equipment.

Thanks for this...I had not thought of it, maybe because I think this
would seem rather obvious to an engineer, or maybe just because I'm
me ;-). I did not notice the het on the b'cast, but I had on the
autonotch to slice out some interference, so that might have banned
it, too.

My Icom R75 on AM-wide has a 6 KHz filter on it, generally completely
adequate for every other station, especially strong ones; and come
neither love nor money, could I get a decent top end out of the
signal. Not be detuning, not by passband tuning, not on SSB either.
Only on a handful of audio bits - all recorded interviews of people
with high, mousey voices - was there truly intelligible voice. I have
this problem only with one other station in my recollection - Radio
Cairo, and that's not its only problem (RC's audio is so weak it is
almost a whisper).

Anyway, I wrote them a reception report (those program details were
tough!), and in honesty had to explain my perception of this problem.
Whether they choose to QSL or not, if they have received even a single
other complaint of this type, I am not sure how they could ignore it.
I just hope the engineers do not lose their jobs...

Bruce Jensen