🔍 Key Concepts

• Automatic Gain Control (AGC) purpose in a receiver • Difference between attack time and decay (release) time in AGC circuits • How speech (voice) patterns behave in SSB reception (peaks vs pauses)

💭 Think About

• When a very strong SSB signal suddenly appears, should the AGC react quickly or slowly to prevent overload and distortion? Think about the attack part. • Between words and syllables in speech, do you want the background noise to jump up quickly or stay suppressed smoothly? Think about the decay part. • For comfortable listening, which combination of attack and decay best keeps the audio level steady without pumping or breathing noises?

✅ Before You Answer

• Make sure you clearly understand which term means how fast AGC reduces gain when signal increases (attack) and which means how fast it restores gain when signal decreases (decay). • Ask: in SSB voice, signal level changes rapidly on voice peaks but has brief pauses; check which timing combination protects against loud peaks while keeping noise from rising in pauses. • Eliminate any option where both attack and decay behaviors would obviously cause either frequent volume pumping or slow response to strong signals.