[WT-support] Sound Cards that Mute Mic

Bob Wilson, N6TV n6tv at arrl.net
Sun Aug 28 07:47:44 CEST 2016


"Mute mic. when DVK is playing" has not worked since Windows Vista, when
Microsoft significantly changed the Windows sound card APIs.
Unfortunately, the Windows library  used by the Win-Test team does not
support the new sound APIs, and migrating everything to the new libraries
and development environment would be a huge effort, according to F6FVY.  So
unless you go back to using Windows XP, or start using a new radio with a
USB sound card built-in, you'll just have to take care not to speak while
the sound card is playing.

When using an Icom radio as a USB sound card for DVK, the mic. is muted OK
during playback, because there is no way for the radio's sound card to play
mic. audio and a sound file at the same time.  One must use my Icom LUA
scripts to use an Icom sound card as a DVK because Win-Test doesn't switch
Icom's sound source automatically.  See IcomScripts.zip at
http://bit.ly/wtscripts .

I have not tried other radio sound cards as a DVK yet (Kenwood TS-590,
Elecraft K3S); they may work OK without requiring new scripts.  The
microHAM MK2R+ sound cards also works fine.

Another option is to use the radio's voice memories instead of the Win-Test
DVK (see scripts for Elecraft, Kenwood and Yaesu), though this technique
doesn't work well with Win-Test's SO2R scenarios due to timing problems.

In sum, Microsoft didn't maintain backwards compatibility.  Worse yet, the
Windows Vista (and later) sound card mic. audio is usually digitized and
delayed, make it nearly impossible to connect your mic. to the sound card
mic. input and monitor your voice audio on the sound card output in real
time, via the radio voice monitor, the way one could on Windows XP.

A few USB sound cards such as the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Amigo II
include a real time hardware audio monitor with no delays, but the mic.
monitor still cannot be muted by Win-Test during playback, unless you're
using Windows XP.

73,
Bob, N6TV

On Aug 27, 2016 9:54 PM, "Colin Jenkins" <colin at ku5b.com> wrote:

> I just put together two brand new computers with ASRock H97M Pro4
> motherboards and have come to find out that the onboard sound card does not
> support mic muting during DVK transmit. Pretty disappointing that this
> still isn't implemented in Win-Test after fighting this battle a few years
> ago.
>
> Any suggestions on (preferably) internal PCI sound cards that will do this?
>
> Colin KU5B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Support mailing list
> support at win-test.com
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>
>
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