so ive been on HF for about two years now mostly doing digital modes but recently started doing more SSB phone work and honestly my audio reports have been all over the place. some guys say i sound great, others say im muffled or hard to copy. im running an IC-7300 into a Heil PR-40 with the stock settings and i havent really touched the TX EQ or anything in the menu. been meaning to dig into it but theres so much in there i dont know where to start.

also i notice when i listen to myself on a second receiver the low end is pretty heavy, like too much bass maybe? not sure if thats the mic or how im positioning it. i keep it maybe 3-4 inches from my mouth. someone at the club mentioned something about the ALC being an issue but i didnt fully understand what they meant. any pointers would be appreciated, been a bit embarassing getting bad reports on a supposedly decent radio.

the ALC thing your club buddy mentioned is actually really important and a lot of people overlook it. basically if your ALC is working too hard — like peaking consistently instead of just occasionally touching — youre compressing the heck out of your audio before it even gets processed cleanly. on the 7300 you want to set your mic gain so the ALC is just barely tickling on voice peaks, not riding it constantly. people set mic gain way too high thinking louder input = louder signal but it doesnt work that way.

for the bass issue, the PR-40 is a great mic but it has a lot of low end especially if youre close to it — thats the proximity effect. either back off a bit more or go into the TX equalizer in the 7300 menus and roll off below like 200-300hz. you dont need those frequencies for voice intelligibility on SSB anyway and they just eat up your average power. also check that your speech processor isnt cranked too high if you have it on, that can make things sound muddy too. honestly just spend an hour going through the audio menus with someone giving you reports on another receiver and youll nail it down pretty quick.

yeah what he said about proximity effect on the PR-40 is real, i had the same problem when i switched to a large diaphragm mic. kept getting told i sounded like i was calling from inside a tunnel lol. moved the mic off to the side slightly instead of dead-on and rolled back the bass in the EQ and got way better reports almost immediately. the 7300 EQ is actually pretty decent once you figure out where it lives in the menus, took me forever to find it the first time.