RadioBanter - View Single Post - Is the code requirement really keeping good people out of ham radio?

Dave Heil · October 5th 06, 05:05 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

wrote:
From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm

wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

Manual radiotelegraphy was a MUST to use early radio
as a communications medium. The technology of early
radio was primitive, simple, and not yet developed.
On-off keying was the ONLY practical way to make it

possible to communicate.
Yet some pioneers (like Reginald Fessenden) were using voice
communication as early as 1900, and had practical lomg-distance
radiotelephony by 1906.

"PRACTICAL?!?" What is "PRACTICAL" about inserting a
single carbon microphone in series with the antenna
lead-in to 'brute force' modulate a CW carrier?!?

It was not only PRACTICAL, Len, it was the ONLY way known at the time.
I don't think they used "the antenna lead-in", old boy. They probably
used the feedline. Think of it as more of a "lead-out". You should get
the lead out.

You have never 'ridden gain' in broadcasting at an audio
control board to make "PRACTICAL" audio broadcasting...

....that you know of.

I have, Len. What of it?

...yet
you DEFINE "practicality" in such things as inserting
a single carbon microphone in series with the antenna
for broadcasting.

Tell us what other way was known when it took place, Len. What would
have been practical in 1900?

For a double-degreed education in things electrical you
just displayed a surprising amount of ILL logic and
definite misunderstanding of the real definition of
"practical."

Practicality had to be defined by the time in which something took
place. Otherwise you're left playing a game of "what if the U.S. had
the atomic bomb in 1917?"

AM broadcasting was a reality by 1920.

Superfluous minutae.

....is your specialty, Len, but I spell it "minutia".

YOU have NEVER been IN broadcasting.

I have, Len. What of it?

Your amateur radio
license does NOT permit broadcasting.

I know that. That's why I don't use it for broadcasting.
Did you know that most people in broadcasting don't have any kind of
license?

I have been IN
broadcasting, still have the license (now lifetime).

That's what I should have written earlier. I have been IN broadcasting,
Len. Are you still in broadcasting? I'm not.

NO, repeat NO amplitude-modulation broadcaster uses
your so-called "practical" means of modulating a CW
carrier. NONE. Had Fessenden's EXPERIMENT been at all
practical, others would have used that technique. NONE
did.

Do you think there's any chance that other, more efficient techniques
were developed?

Morse code was then already
mature and a new branch of communications was open
to use by downsized landline telegraphers.

While some radio operators came from the ranks of landline telegraph
operators, most did not, as it was predominantly young men who
pioneered radio in the early part of the 20th century.

PR bull**** you fantasize.

Feel free to post anything at all which documents your version.

You were NOT among the
"pioneers of radio" and you have NO demographics to
prove the ages, let alone a poll or listing showing
that. All you have is some bowdlerized, very edited
versions of radio history from the ARRL.

That's your story and you're sticking with it.

Here's a plain and simple fact: Landline telegraphy
was already changing from manual to teleprinter by
the year 1900. That changeover continued until the
middle of the 1900s until ALL the landline telegraph
circuits were either shut down or replaced by
electromechanical teleprinters.

I'm sure the guys in a landline telegraph newsgroup would be fascinated
by your account.

The Morse Code
used on landlines was "American" Morse, while that used on radio after
1906 was predominantly "International" or "Continental" Morse.

Superfluous minutae.

That's how I like to think of your ADA tales of better than a
half-century back, except I use "minutia"

Manual telegraphy consisted of
closing and opening a circuit. That has never changed.

Superfluous minutia.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different versions
of on-off telegraphy which have been developed, NONE of
them modeled on either "International" or "Continental"
AMERICAN morse code or any English-language
representation.

Superfluous minutia.

Jim has more patience with you than I can muster.

Dave K8MN