Crappy Helmet communication

[mzso]

A good microphone right at the mouth is simple and works. any filters, second or even third microphones would add complexity and weight that is unnecessary.

I didn't say they should add more, only better.

[Jolle]

A good microphone right at the mouth is simple and works. any filters, second or even third microphones would add complexity and weight that is unnecessary.

I didn't say they should add more, only better.

If you want to use a single microphone in a noisy environment, close miking is what you do (and they do, with the added benefit that they just have one umbilical for the mic, headphones and G sensors, at the hip instead of out of the helmet)

[VT5700]

....

[Jolle]

I think the hardware could be much better. Better noise insulation, noise filtering, better placed microphones. (And whatever I couldn't think of.)

I wonder how it sounds in Indycar with the windshield.

The bigger question could be, why? The radio's primary function is for the driver and engineer to communicate. A good microphone right at the mouth is simple and works. any filters, second or even third microphones would add complexity and weight that is unnecessary. Besides that, if a driver mumbles in a for him foreign language, whatever tech you throw at it, it's still difficult to understand.

look at the old phone network. To make it simple and cheap, the quality is bad, but good enough to have a good conversation over the phone (with quite crappy equipment). You only notice this when you talk trough a full range app. There are even instances that this small bandwidth helps with understanding the other person better (the small bandwidth works as a rudimentary filter to filter out noises that take quite the amount of power/bandwidth).

I like the old telephoneline quality much more over new digital. And same applies to analog radio, although I understand they don't want to use analog anymore, and use digital for reasons of too many radio channels being used (is this right ?) I can easily make a very good quality connection with analog, much better than the digital i hear on F1. It is not so difficult to make a 60dB SNR on a motorcycle at 200km/h so, why not in a car ?

As someone that works from time til time with a lot of wireless audio, a recording inside an helmet on a motorcycle (I ride too, and sometimes have phonicalls on the road as well) is something completely different. Analogue transmission is out of the question because of the heavy transmitters all around the paddock (not just car to pit but also the many TV stations, TV feeds and general communications around the track. Not oven taken in to account the 100.000 cellphones blasting from the grandstands. The bandwidth for audio will be as small as possible, with all the compression they can think of so there is more room for data. I presume the teams are on a single network of mesh transmitters around the track for data and voice. The TV is done still with the helicopter I guess.

so, audio has to be "just good enough", not the best possible.

[Zynerji]

An analog/digital setup like Ibiquity used for HD Radio could solve all of that.

Also. Using a bone conducting microphone might be tough with the massive vibrations of a modern F1 car...

[Jolle]

The question is of course also: how much audio quality will you be able to get from someone laying down, with a heartrate of 120, speaking in his second or third language, shaken to bits while talking isn’t in his top three priorities at that moment.

[VT5700]

An analog/digital setup like Ibiquity used for HD Radio could solve all of that.

Also. Using a bone conducting microphone might be tough with the massive vibrations of a modern F1 car...

Bone Conduction is plain silly and will not work.

[VT5700]

The question is of course also: how much audio quality will you be able to get from someone laying down, with a heartrate of 120, speaking in his second or third language, shaken to bits while talking isn’t in his top three priorities at that moment.

For me, this is easy. Simple.

[mzso]

The question is of course also: how much audio quality will you be able to get from someone laying down, with a heartrate of 120, speaking in his second or third language, shaken to bits while talking isn’t in his top three priorities at that moment.

None of that has any relevance to audio quality. No matter how a driver talks it should be clearer with good audio transmission.

[VT5700]

The question is of course also: how much audio quality will you be able to get from someone laying down, with a heartrate of 120, speaking in his second or third language, shaken to bits while talking isn’t in his top three priorities at that moment.

None of that has any relevance to audio quality. No matter how a driver talks it should be clearer with good audio transmission.

Exactly. But it is true that the vibrations highly affect the voice. And it can only be changed by isolating the driver from the seat vibrations, for example by using a gel film.

What i also observe is that Hamilton has a higher pitched clear voice, while his opponent Max Verstappen mumbles with a lower unclear voice and I am not talking about the radio comms but simply when they talk to news reporters.

You can notice it also in the race, Hamilton has 2 advantages over Verstappen by the nature of his higher pitched voice, and also a better setup of the Mercedes communication system.

Still, its quite shocking to me they cannot realise better than this. And I saw a video where Max Verstappen accidentally went for a pitstop where he wasn't ordered to ! What kind of miscommunication is this ??

Is it miscommunication bc Max was focused on other things, like racing? Or is it bc the pit-crew also has a doubtful speechquality ? I heard clearly F1-cars driving by over the pit-microphone. Which again, i can't understand. I don't know how far the pitcrew is away from the race track but it should be made and used in a way, the cars are not audible in the microphone. Because I think the drivers have already enough to focus on. If you imagine, the driver has a lot of noise surrounding him, and in his earplugs he also gets carnoise of other drivers via the microphone of the pitcrew, how confusing is that ???

And can somebody explain me, and I notice it over and over again, even if they drive much slower in curves, there is still a lot of noise audible ? WHY .. WHY

look here :
https://www.gptoday.net/nl/nieuws/f1/26 ... n-het-team

https://en.vmax.si/2020/08/25/marko-wan ... formula-1/

Both directions have low speech quality.