How much unique chatter can they stick on a little chip? Serious question, probably more than I would think but not enough to keep from being repetitious.
Sorry that’s not an answer to your question. I listed to Broadcastify and garbled voices are protypical. This is the Baltimore railroad feed: http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/14954/web
I think BLI and the like only offer 3 or 4 different voice samples for the chatter in their decoders and they usually cycle through them frequently. Even if you are able to boost the volume of an individual voice sample function - if you have several engines going at the same time - it’s just going to be a cacophony of sound and you still won’t be able to distinguish what’s being said; let alone - trying to talk amongst yourselves over the top of it.
For me - it’s a gimmick, along with smoke and most of the functions F9 and above. As long as you have lights, horn/whisle, and bell (and perhaps, coupler clash) - along with mute - you’re good for an operating session. Those are the only important functions in my function arsensal. And, sometimes, it’s just nice operating without sound at all.
Tom
Yeah, they just have a couple of clips and cycle through them. And it’s not even accurate for many of the locos. This is one of the things where I don’t care that it’s on one of the upper functions because it’s one button I won’t be hitting. BLI’s ‘other’ divisin, PCM, even put it in the Loksound decoders in my Reading T1’s.
Station announcements and other stuff like the train wreck sounds in MTH are equally useless. And don’t forget cattle sounds - I guess the cattle car was full so they stuffed some cows in the tender or something.
–Randy
Good points
Whats next, 1/87 trucks and trailers with CB chatter? [:-*]
“Breaker one nine, you got your ears on good buddy?” [(-D]
OH yeah, that’s another good point - unless you have an external speaker, you’re not going to hear the radio chatter alongside a loco (or truck - they have HO scale RC trucks, shouldn’t be a huge matter to get SOUND in them as well…).
–Randy
To answer the OP’s question, a bad recording is a bad recording and no amount of volume increase will fix that. In fact, it might work better at a lower volume, but then you would have to turn the other sounds off so you could hear the voices so that doesn’t work either.
Realistically, most of the time you would never hear the voices of the engineer or fireman from outside the train anyhow. Heck, they can hardly hear each other inside the cab! I have a couple of QSI decoders with voice sounds. I shut them off completely, but that is my choice, clearly not the OP’s. The only voice that might have some validity IMO is the conductor’s “All Aboard” at a station.
If you want real crew communication, learn the whistle or horn signals that were used in the yards. One other interesting thing to model would be the cabooses that had their own whistles so the conductor could communicate back to the engineer. That could get a bit complex because you would need a sound decoder in the caboose and you would have to quickly toggle back and forth between the engine and caboose decoders to get it to work. If you had limitless funds you could get a RailPro system just for the caboose whistles!
[2c]
Dave
I would have to disagree with these comments. In my experience it’s not at all uncommon to hear radio chatter through open cab windows when a locomotive is setting in a siding or swicthing cars. I generally cannot understand what they are saying and I would have to say my BLI E7 actually emulates this quite nicesly.
Seems to be only a short stretch around here where the crew commonly runs with the windows open, in full summer it’s too hot so they have the AC on, in winter it’s too cold so they have the cab head going. But then this is just what I see rolling by the times I am driving alongside tracks or waiting at a crossing. I’m not much of a modern railfan.
From being IN the cab - it’s hard to understand what’s being said from the conductor’s seat when running at speed. Stopped and waiting for a clearance, not a problem.
Regardless, doesn’t change the fact that a modern call for protection or clearance is just dead wrong for a steam locomotive in the 1950’s [:D]
It did take a couple of times but on the ones I have that have radio chatter, I was able to understnad what they were saying after a couple of plays. Since in my case these are Loksound decoders, I should see if I can find some other ambient steam loco sound that’s not already on the decoder and swap the recordings. Maybe the sound of a stoker operating.
–Randy
Robert, you are quite correct if you are speaking of a situation where you as the listener are close to the cab. I was speaking in terms of normal modelling distances where you are 200 - 300 scale feet or more away from the train. Personally, I find the chatter to be disconcerting. I like to feel as though I am seeing my trains from a distance, but, as I said, each to his own. Unfortunately for the OP the chatter isn’t clear. That may indeed have been intentional on the part of the decoder manufacturers in order to simulate exactly what you have experienced. Maybe they should offer two versions of the chatter, one understandable and one not.
Dave
I made a cassette tape in the early 1980s of Conrail radio “chatter” around the Cleveland area.
I digitized it and made a CD of it. I’m new to Dropbox but I’m going to make a link here to the first track with about twelve minutes worth of radio talk. Hopefully anyone can download it and make a CD or rip it to your MP3 player.
If this works I’ll post the other tracks in this and maybe another thread so anyone can get some use out of it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4vjzw4mkswsdn3e/01%20Track%201.wav?dl=0
Let me know if the above link works, then I’ll post the other six.
[edit] It seems to take a few minutes to load so give it a little time. If you click the three-dot icon in the upper right you can download the .wav file.
One thing about understanding radio transmissions is that these guys have “situational awareness” so it is much easier for them to understand what is going on. I carried a radio at work and sometimes other people would hear the conversations and could not see how I could understand what was being said. It becomes second nature after a while and your mind automatically sorts out what the situation is and what is being communicated.
Regards, Ed
From listening to railroad radio chatter online, it sounds like the sound quality of the actual transmissions is pretty poor. Even online with headphones it can be hard to make things out.
In general with sounds, turning the volume down sometimes makes it clearer - less distortion. Especially true with small speaker(s).
That happens for railfans, too. Two years ago, I had several days of trackside photography. This time, I brought a radio. Over time, the communictions became more “intelligible”.
Ed
I already hear voices in my head…