Flextone Echo volume booster

doggin coyotes

doggin coyotes

Well-known member
I was bored today.
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For no real reason I recently bought a Flextone Echo caller from a member here.
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It warmed up fairly decent this afternoon so I headed out to the prairie for some remote range and dependability testing.

To say I was impressed would be an understatement. Wow! I put the caller in a very small yucca (soap weed). That got the caller no more than 8 inches off the ground. I started walking straight away from the caller and counted out 75 BIG, LONG steps. That got me to a small rise and I could clearly see the caller. Turned on the remote and went through a bunch of sound changes, volume changes, mutes and unmutes. It never missed a lick. Not even once.

Walked another 75 big, long steps which took me off the the other side of the rise and at this point the caller was totally out of sight and I had a pretty decent hill between me and the caller. I did all the same tests with the remote as before. Again the caller took every command and worked perfect! WOW!

Sooooo, off I go with another 75 big, long steps. I gotta be 225 yards, and very likely more, with the big hill between me and the caller now... At this point I'm thinking no friggin way will it work. I bring up "crow in distress" on the remote and punch send. My hearing sucks and I can barely hear it. But IT IS WORKING! I can make out pauses, sound changes, etc, etc, barely, but I can. It's not missing a beat!

Now I take off walking a big circle around the caller doing the best I can to stay the same distance away. From this point on I never can see where the caller is or have line of sight. In some places I drop way down in some low depressions and it's still working every time. Some places there was lots of cactus and brush between. As far as I could tell it worked every single time. Without fail. I honestly don't think my caller that uses FHSS would of worked in some of those depressions and behind some of those hills and at those distances. I'll be trying it to find out.
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Enough of that. I was impressed. Big time impressed.

The sound quality is good. The sounds are good. They WILL call predators.

OK. I was disappointed in the volume. It darn sure could use some more. I got home this afternoon and started thinking (DANGER ALERT)..I got to thinking maybe, just maybe, the perforated grill in front of the horn speaker could be somewhat muffling the sound. At least a little.
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So I commence to dismantling the caller. That grill was coming out!

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Success!

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A quick test in the house after reassembly and it *seems* to have helped. I'll test it in the same place I tested today in the next day or two and have a better idea.

I was also very impressed with the actual build quality of the caller. The caller did NOT disassemble easily! It actually has a rubber gasket between the two case halves and there was a good sealer every place there was a possibility of water, dirt dust or other crap getting inside. The caller is built for the nasty conditions it may encounter out in the field. The lil Chinamens did a good job putting this particular one together..
 
Nice work doggin, I like the photos.

Can you tell me how big the circuit is in that caller? I'm thinking that if it could be gutted and put into a TOA speaker, then you'd really have a good caller. By the looks of that circuit, it appears as though there is a heat sink on the board, meaning that it's probably not the effecient class d amplifier.

Thanks.
 
Snow, I didn't do any measuring, but it *might* would fit it in a TOA end cap. And yes, that is a heat sink you see. I doubt the amp that's in the Flextone would drive a TOA.

The horn speaker in the Flextone is identical to the one in the Turbo Dogg caller (and likely most of the FP's). The Turbo blows the Flextone away in top end volume (as do most of the FP's). The caller is an 8AA battery system just like the Turbo and FP's. The power is already there. They simply skimped on the amp. If the Flextone had a better/more efficient amp to achieve a little more top end volume, it would be one heck of a caller for the bucks spent. And honestly, the volume it has now is fine for about 80% of the calling most guys would ever need.

I still can't get over the remote range the thing has. In the one pic you can see the approx. 5" long, bare copper wire taped to the speaker. As you probably know that is what they are using for the receiver antenna. From the manufacturer that antenna wire came off the receiver and was actually ran downward to the bottom side of the speaker which was the lowest place it could possibly be routed. Seemed kinda goofy to do it that way. Before I reassembled the caller, I re-routed that wire and took it up to the highest point possible inside the caller. That can only help even more (not that it needed it
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My question to you other guys that have and actually used these Echo callers out in the field, are your remotes working the same as what I've experienced????
 
doggin,
It's surprising sometimes how little it takes to make the TOA sing. I'm looking at it from a durability issue more than extreme volume standpoint. That's pretty impressive with the remote range too. I haven't heard of anybody with that kind of remote reliability.
 
Originally Posted By: snowcamomandoggin,
It's surprising sometimes how little it takes to make the TOA sing. I'm looking at it from a durability issue more than extreme volume standpoint. That's pretty impressive with the remote range too. I haven't heard of anybody with that kind of remote reliability.

If I would of thought about it when I had it apart I would of did a little experimenting with a few different speakers. Darn sure would of been easy enough to do at that point.

I know there are several other guys that have these ECHO callers. I'm hoping some of them will chime in on what they are seeing out of their remotes. I'll be the first to say I wouldn't of believed it if I hadn't seen/heard it.

I'll be going out a little later this afternoon to see if removing the speaker grill seemed to help with the volume. I'll update afterwords.
 
Dang Doggin!

All that work for a new doily!

Neat though,.I'd would of had all the wires pulled off before I got it apart!
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Vaportrail
 
The verdict is in. It definitely helped! I could hear it much better today at some of the spots I could barely hear it yesterday.
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I also walked off 300 big steps today through a bunch of sage brush and the dang remote still worked! (caller in a bush about 16" off ground)

Vaportrail, wanna buy a nice metal doily?
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Doggin, are there any tips you would give to anyone that will follow your lead on this? I want to take mine apart now, and lose the cover also. When you said it was hard to get apart, it makes me a little hesitant. It must be done though. Any extra info would be appreciated. Glad you did this. It is good to know it can be made louder.
 
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Should of bought one of these and installed also while apart. Then you could of used an amp and speaker like the ones used for homemade callers.

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The amp probably wouldn't drive an extra speaker?? If so it would probably require more power and I bet the board might not hold the extra juice ???
 
Well hope some of you smart guys keep playing around and figure out how to get more volume out of these things right know that's my only concern or problem with the caller the remote is awesome. I was playing around testing the remote distance this afternoon and had my neighbor come through the woods stalking the caller it was kinda funny to watch. FYI I also made a homemade caller using the radio shack amp and an app on my iPhone the thing has awesome volume if we could do this with flextone we would have something. Sometimes I'll set up and run both callers running separate sounds it hasn't panned out yet but it's fun playing around
 
Yeah my controller works at crazy long distances too. I never flip my antenna up on my remote, no need. I have used it at 200 yards line of sight and just messing around at least 150 yards through thick timber with lots of under growth. I am really interested to see what you guys find out about the inner workings of this call.

Doggin would you say removing the cover is worth it? I doubt I really need the volume but it would be nice to have I guess. If you had to put a number to it would you guess something like a 10% increase? more? less? Thanks for the write up. Oh and I know some people have talked about having problems with their batteries, but mine are still holding up strong and will get me through days of calling.

Did it seem to seal up as tight when you put it back together
 
If you guys want to remove the grill without taking apart looks like it'd be easy. One of those spiral cut saw bits in a dremel going from hole to hole. Wrap some tape around the bit to use as a stop so you don't go too deep and hit the speaker. All the seals should remain intact.
 
Took my flextone apart this morning and took the rear speaker wires loose from speaker, than drilled a small hole in the side of the body of the call and ran speaker wires out.Than i sealed wire and hole up with silicone blue rtv hooked wires to a radio shack horn speaker and put caller on rear speaker MAN WHAT VOLUME!Tomorrow i'm going to radio shack to get a 3.5mm female speaker wire jack and hook it up than i can ran my sp55 speaker or any other kind of speaker.Hope this helps anyone wanting alot more volume out of their flextone HD.
 
Originally Posted By: Ricky BobbyA correct size holesaw used without the pilot would probably get it drilled out in a hurry

By all means, try that and let us know how it works out for ya.
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Guys, after I had decided I wanted to get that speaker grill out of the way, I studied the caller and thought for a long time on how I wanted to get er done. I did come up with several ways I could do it without disassembling the caller. But every one of those ways would of ended up looking like some kind of a half azzed hack job. That is something I would NOT be pleased with. Not to mention the resell value if I ever want to sell it (and I still have the original unmolested grill to put back in or send with the caller if I ever do sell).

End the end, FOR ME, removing it completely was what I decided to do. The end result is very clean and looks great. If a person didn't know better, he would think this caller came "open faced" from the manufacturer. And as far as I'm concerned it should! No other call manufacturer that I can think of puts a perforated grill in front of their *horn* speaker.

Originally Posted By: unloadedDidn't happen to stumble upon a USB port or removable media while you were in there did you?

Well since you asked. No, I didn't.
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Originally Posted By: Irish_80

Doggin would you say removing the cover is worth it? I doubt I really need the volume but it would be nice to have I guess. If you had to put a number to it would you guess something like a 10% increase? more? less?

Did it seem to seal up as tight when you put it back together

Irish, to ME it was worth it. Without a doubt it is louder. How much, I would hate to even guesstimate. I wish I had the audio testing equipment to do an accurate test of before and after. But *sigh*, I don't. All I have is these old ears. But even if it's only 2%, that's 2% louder than it was.
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(I'm sure it's more than 2% though)
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As far as being sealed up good after having it apart. The way it's made with the rubber between the case halves, the rubber rings around speakers and the control buttons having a good rubber seal, it is probably real close to being *good as new*.
 


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