RadioBanter - View Single Post

Dave Heil · October 18th 06, 10:48 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote:
wrote:
Slow Code wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote in
:
Slow Code wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote in
While you are being all holier than thou, what did you design and
build for your main rig? I'm hoping to be impressed, but expecting to
be disappointed.
Did the code help you with the design?
I took my Advanced class test down at 1919 M street 36 years ago. I
had to sit at the desk and copy one solid minute out of five error
free at 13WPM. I passed it on the first try. I almost failed the
sending test, as I had never spent much time doing that. I had never
made a code contact before my test, and I have only made a couple
since.
The thing about code contacts is they never seem to want to say
anything beyond:
WA3XXX DE W6XX RST 5NN WX FB 73 W6XX SK

That's not the case when I operate Morse Code.

For me, it depends on what I'm doing. If I'm chasing DX, I don't expect
the other op to give me his life's story or to go into detail on the
weather in the Kermadecs. On the other hand, I nice a nice, long
ragchew with K8ATM in Michigan on 80m CW just a couple of evenings ago.
Our chat laster about 35 minutes.

I have listened to hundreds of CW contacts, and the above is mostly the norm.
I exaggerate a bit, but it is rare that anyone talks about anything other
than a few very simple things. I have yet to listen to a complex conversation
on CW... The most complicated thing I have heard is W1AW code practice, and
some of the traffic nets.

Listening is one thing, participating is another. I've had many, many
CW QSOs that were far more complex than your example. Discussions of
rigs, antennas, jobs, family, plans for the near future (vacation, home
improvement, etc.), experiences in the other's location, and much more.

Ditto.

The stereotypical hello/goodbye QSO is usually the result of these
factors: poor conditions, unskilled operator(s), nature of the QSO (DX,
contest, just checking a new rig)

....or you just might have run into one of the silent types. I run into
them on the Fone modes too.

Of course somebody has to initiate - to say something beyond hello...

Yep.

How does that help the cause of amateur radio?
I have designed and built numerous rf receivers and transmitters, many
are employed by the US Army for various uses. I have fixed many
different radios from tube stuff through DSP driven affairs.
How exactly did the code help me to do this?

Well, I don't know about you. But for me, knowing Morse Code meant I
could build and use simple(r) radio systems to try out an idea.

I don't think that every thing we do needs to be toward "helping the
cause of amateur radio".

For me code was a means to an end. I wanted my license, so I learned
the code.
There were plenty of rude, profane, and generally unpleasant hams on
the air back when all had to pass the test in the offices of the FCC.
I don't remember that at all.
Well, you wouldn't if you spent all of your time on CW.

Good point!

Well, it *may* be a good point but I listened to both fone and CW as a
kid, before obtaining my license. I continued to listen to the fone
bands as a new ham. I don't recall much in way of rudeness or profanity
in those days, certainly not as we see it now. I didn't meet more than
a couple of hams who would not go out of their way to provide an assist
either.

Things are very
polite on those subbands.

Isn't that a reason to promote the mode?

That's one very good reason to do so.

If however, you ever listened to 20 meters
around 14.313, you might have a different idea of what ham radio was about.
For some reason that frequency was full of profane garbage mouthed hams,
and lots of infighting in the '70s and '80s.

Sure. But how many hams were involved, out of the hundreds of thousands
on the air?

....and isn't it nice that they generally worked their unpleasant magic
on a few spot frequencies.

I haven't noticed that things are any worse now. About the only real
difference is in the quality of the gear folks are running. It is
much better than the crappy stuff that was on the air back in the
early 70's.

There were good and bad rigs then as well as now.

Perhaps, but nothing like some of the very cheap sweep tube transceivers of
the late 1960's, and early '70's. Swans that drifted furiously, and practically
invented the term TVI...

Swan gear mostly drifted. It gave rise to some Cincinnati-area hams
telling ops with drifting gear that they were "swanning". Most other
gear had pretty good frequency stability. Back in those heady days, I
had a Hallicrafters HT-32B which was stable, a Hammarlund HX-50 which
was stable and a National NCX-5 which was very stable. The NCX-5 and
HX-50 used sweep tubes in their output stages and the signals they
transmitted were as clean as anything else on the air.

Sure - but remember that those rigs were designed 40+ years ago. They
should be judged by the standards of their time.

Absolutely, but my point is that there were sweep tube rigs with
stability and clean signals. Remember the Drake TR-3, TR-4 and T-4
series? Sweep tubes all and very clean.

What are the bad HF SSB rigs of today? I would bet that even the absolute
worst is cleaner than anything that was available in the '60's, and '70's...
If only because the regulations got tighter on spurious emissions from new
gear.

It depends on what you consider "bad". Last FD we had some rigs that
were unusable because they put out wideband phase noise that messed up
stations on adjacent bands! Those rigs might have met the letter of the
law when new, but they sure made a lot of hash in the real world.

Even some of the better rigs of the eighties and nineties had that
problem. The TS-930, 940 and 950 and the IC-751 put out plenty of phase
noise. The Yaesu FT-1000MP (and all Mark-anything versions) put out key
clix like nobody's business.

OTOH, serviceability of many ham rigs is very low. Even if you can deal
with SMT, a lot of them use house-numbered parts that become unobtanium
in a few years.

....and many of those older rigs can still be kept on the air.

Even 34 years ago, there were study guides that had questions from the
pool used by the FCC. If you could memorize the answers to those
questions, you were virtually assured of passing. I used the ARRL
handbook as my guide.

Do you mean the License Manual?

Nope, I did my Advanced from basic principles. I used the ARRL Radio
Amateur's Handbook as my guide to rules and regulations. The technical
side of my studying came from the handbook, and a variety of other radio
and engineering sources.

Same here - all the way to Extra in 1970.

I used both the License Manual and the Handbook.

It did not have the exact questions and answers in it.

I looked at friend's copy of one of the the license manuals that was available
after my test, and the questions and answers were very close. It was nothing
like the manuals that are available today, but still so close as to be a cheat.

There were a couple of different license manuals available back then.

The ARRL LM was a reprint of FCC's study guide. Those FCC study guides
were produced by FCC to indicate the areas of knowledge you needed to
have for the test. They were essay format even though the tests were
multiple-choice.

The FCC didn't consider the License Manual to be a "cheat". To do so,
their own study guide would have been a "cheat".

AMECO and others rewrote them into multiple choice format.

I remember the AMECO books. I've glanced through them but never used 'em.

A fellow named Dick Bash stationed himself outside FCC offices and
bought information from people who had just taken the tests. He was
able to recreate a pretty close version of the actual test by that
method. FCC decided not to prosecute him even though he published books
that were very close to the actual tests.

But a very large flap ensued over Bash.

Then it all became academic with the VE system.

(extraneous newsgroups deleted)

Dave K8MN