As for the compressor/expander suggestions, it's already done. The problem is not with the signal coming to the board. Without writing a novel, the basic principle is that a phone ignal has to be split and kept from bleeding/crosstalking into each other in order to broadcast. It is how the caller is allowed to hear all the studio audio coming down the line, and we also hear it, as well as send it to you. So a phone hybrid does this splitting and processing. The better the hybrid, the more the signal is split. With less splitting (as in our case with a basic hybrid) the more volume we crank through the board (to us and you) and the more feedback and crosstalk occurs on the original signal, making the whole thing muddy.
We've been dealing with it and improving it for four years now. Some shows it's actually flawless. Others not so much. We find that the defining factor tends to be the strength of the phone signal coming in, rather than ours going out. And that varies all over the country.
J
