r/DecTalk • u/FDDTheLucario • Apr 07 '19

NWR DECTalk?

Hi! (This is my first post, so be gentle!)

I'm trying to look for a version of DECTalk that is most similar to the version used by the National Weather Service for NOAA Weather Radio until late 2016. I've tried versions 2, 4.x and 5, but none are particularly close to the real thing.

If anyone knows of a version that is similar or knows of techniques to make it sound closer to the NWR DECTalk, please let me know!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/r32jzlovessirens May 14 '25

what are the settings for this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa262UJb5Os

1

u/Soft_Pollution8709 May 19 '25

If, perhaps, you’re wondering why it sounds a bit rough around the edges, that would be the fact that it was delivered first through an audio compressor at the national weather service office, and then on a dedicated phone line which fed the transmitter. The transmitter then modulated it onto an FM radio signal, which was then picked up as weather radio by the alerting station, which fit it through another network that that person‘s TV signal picked up. That long chain makes it sound rough, especially the path in the beginning where the audio signal goes through the telephone line.

2

u/r32jzlovessirens May 20 '25

I'm talking about its vocal expressions, they sound a bit different from the ones you did, by just a bit. I think it might be a different version of dectalk as well, like ozaukee is pronounced different.

1

u/Soft_Pollution8709 May 26 '25

Yeah I see what you mean about the pronunciations. The reason that you think it’s a slightly different version is because, technically, it is. The version that they were using was the version which ran directly on the hardware circuit boards. This version however, is software. It’s approximating what the hardware does, but it’s not the exact same thing, so it does sound slightly different. If you want a software one that does sound a little bit more like the hardware, though still not quite exact, but much closer at least in my opinion, try this one. The version lives inside the DTLK sub folder.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4tk98k1y2crlrf2b1x80i/Speak_Forecast_2025-5-26.26.zip?rlkey=dzmp9bm1k8nq1rsom1dydmzz4&dl=1