"Stefan Wolfe" ) writes:
"Michael Black" wrote in message
...
"Stefan Wolfe" ) writes:
"Stefan Wolfe" wrote in message
...
You use it to transmit from
your serial port directly to the AM commercial band (10000 Khs) and the
other side listens on a commerical AM radio.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/...ansmitter.html
Whoops, typo....S/B 1000Khz.


And wouldn't it be A2? Or have they tossed out that designation?

A2 was/is an audio tone into an AM transmitter.

I think in this circuit pin 4 of the serial port connects to the power input
of the oscillator cihip. The oscillator 1MHz "carrier" is truely keyed on
and off, thus it is A1A.


I admit I didn't look at the link before, but having done so, they are
talking about a choice, modulating the oscillator with one of two audio
frequencies, or just on-off keying.

Since they are using one of the control lines of the serial port, rather
than the serial data line, they have full control (well depending on
the operating system) over that line, so they can switch it at a low
rate, for CW, or switch it at a fast rate such as 1KHz, and then doing
that on and off to match the code's on and off.

My expectation that it would be A2 is based on the simple fact that
the average AM radio doesn't have a BFO, and trying to decipher CW without
a BFO is difficult at the very least.

Hence, any project for building a "CW transmitter" in the AM broadcast
band (and the FM broadcast band for that matter, though I don't recall
seeing any of those) would be keying an audio oscillator that modulates
an RF oscillator, so you could hear it in the radio. It's been like
that since 36 years ago when I built one for a science project, and
long before that.

That webpage does acknowledge that you can send straight CW, but
then you'd need a receiver with a BFO, I think they said "expensive
shortwave radio".

Michael VE2BVW

wrote:
From: on Wed, Jan 10 2007 7:24 pm

AaronJ wrote:
John Smith I wrote:

Minor, inconsequential and random errors are easily programmed into the
computer generated model, but will give the morse that "unique
signature" of the "imitated keyers style."

IMO the perfect fist sounds like computer generated CW. And it's the easiest to
copy. All those so called 'unique fists' can be copied but it's like trying to
understand someone from Brooklyn (or Texas)...

Well, there was some debate about this a few years back. It centered
around a couple of things; 1) being a lack of an actual definition of
Morse Code in Title 47, and 2) the desire of several of the Pro-Code
Test folks to claim that a method of TEACHING Morse Code should be used
as a Morse Code Exam, i.e., the Farnsworth Code.

"Bang on" as the Brits say, Brian.

BTW, it took the FCC years to finally update Part 97 from its
previously OBSOLETE CCITT document reference to the 'proper'
ITU-T document. Even then the proper document, like the old
CCITT one, describes a COMMERCIAL telegram protocol, not an
amateur one.

The FCC should know better than to mix commercial telegram protocol
with amateur protocol. Why, it's off topic...

Morse Code had previously been defined with specific dot, dash, and
space interval ratios. Exams were then defined as Morse Code sent at
rates of 20, 13, and 5 WPM. Today, they use the Teaching Method of
Farnsworth Code, where the dot, dash, and interval can be anything
desired, and character speeds of 13 to 15 WPM for a 5 WPM exam. That's
fine for learning the code as Part 97 doesn't address any particular
method, nor does it advocate any particular vendor such as W5YI or
ARRL.

Yet Part 97 still, even to this day, requires a Morse Code Exam
(Farnsworth isn't mentioned) at a Morse Code Rate of 5 WPM.
Lengthening the space interval isn't addressed as a way to get 13 to 15
WPM character speeds down to 5 WPM word rate. But hey, Part 97 is only
a suggestion, right?

A DEFINITON of WORD RATE is NOT DIRECTLY STATED in Part 97!
Perhaps two sentences could have been included to SET or FIX
the word rate...but the FCC never included that. When that
was 'discussed' in here by the morse mavens, they all pointed
to Paris with an "everybody 'knows' that" kind of attitude.

Like Shirley McClain, they all held hands and faced East.

And none of that matters now, anyway.

THANK GOD! Miracles can happen. :-)

We'll see. At this point it's an "apparent" miracle.

Anyhow, the Pro-Code Exam folks were all over the notion that code was
an individual thing and that each person's code sounded like "speech"
to them because of all of the little and big imperfections, and
sometimes the big imperfections were deliberate. I was chided for
suggesting that manually sent code should be formed as precisely as one
could make it, which sparked another debate. Apparently, humans trying
to send perfect code shouldn't be a goal in amateur radio, even if
unachievable. Which took us full circle to the humans emulating modems
of the original invention of Sammy Morse, the code paper tape with
dashes and longer dashes scribed on them.

Sam's original "code" was all NUMBERS. That's what was used
in the first US telegram company (Washington DC to Baltimore
MD, 1844). Five-number code groups representing "common"
phrases of the 1800s. And, it was done with paper tape with
an ink pen driven by an electromagnet.

Sam's financial angel, Al Vail, came up with the first true
telegraphic code to represent letters and punctuation as well
as just numbers. Sam was running out of numbers in his "code
dictionary" and didn't have enough (or maybe patience) and the
original morse code was NOT speedy...although it really, really
outpaced the common rider-horse courier system for "overnight
delivery" of that time. :-)

Today, code is sent for pleasure. That almost merits a government
exam.

Oh, well, it was a nice walk in the park. The PCTA folks arguments
were as imperfect as the code they send.

Tsk, tsk, Brian. By their own admission, *all* PCTA send
Perfect Code! Much, much faster than 'we' can realize. :-)

But, in retrospect, all the PCTA had for "reasons" of
retention of the code test amounted to mental conditioning
(brainwashing) over years and years of League emphasis on
that mode. They were subconsciously parroting all of it.

In some cases, it was overt.

PCTA will NEVER, ever admit to ANY mental conditioning.
To them amateur radio was all about radiotelegraphy.
Before the turn of the new millennium, every other radio
service had DROPPED OOK CW or never considered it when
that radio service was created. Morsemanship is alive
(and on life support) ONLY in amateur radio today. I say
"only" because a few olde-tymers in other radio services
MIGHT be still using morsemanship but that is NOT what is
the MAJOR MODE of communications.

As long as there is a single one out there...

Miccolis will jump in here and say I am "wrong" or
"mistaken" (as is his usual ranting) but it is TRUE.
Except for the die-hard (Bruce Willis wannabes?)
morsemen in ham radio, morse code is DYING if not
dead. THEY are the zombies, the "walking dead" who
strut around pretending to be "champion ops in radio."
Yes, "champion" in the time-frame of the 1930s. This
is 2007, not 70 years ago.



There will be stigmata in the Church of Saint Hiram when the Federal
Register publishes the R&O.

Stefan Wolfe wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
From: on Wed, Jan 10 2007 7:24 pm

AaronJ wrote:
John Smith I wrote:

Personally, I like Farnsworth better than Morse. I use Farnsworth all the
time and it seems that people who only use Morse have no problem copying my
Farnsworth.

Farnsworth is a teaching method used to avoid the mental counting of
dits and dahs in slower speed Morse Code. In Farnsworth, as you
approach the desired speed, the spaces continue to be reduced until, at
the desired speed, you are using Morse Code.

So unless you are running a code class on the air, why would you use
it? Are you sending to Val Germann?

"Michael Black" wrote in message
...

If it looks and sounds like CW, then it is CW.

If the carrier of a double sideband AM signal is not keyed on and off, it is
not true CW, no matter how it sounds.

I think the problem is that you are incorrectly equating A1 "CW" to A2 "MCW"
(tone modulated continuous wave).

Actually, MCW is an oxymoron. Although you can have a wave continuously
modulated by tone, you cannot have a continuous wave if the wave is
continuously modulated. It should be WCM, not MCW :-)

You obviously know the difference. A1 CW must meet the emission requirement
of on/off keying of the carrier - only.


In other words, it's the results that matter. You can't get those
results with a microphone, and that's why it's not CW.

I agree with the latter.

Nothing is true "CW" except keyed double sideband carrier (A1A). That
doesn't mean it isn't Morse (or Farnsworth :-)). True CW is very narrowly
defined in its emission characteristic. It is only a technical point. You
can call tone modulated carrier "CW" if you wish but that does not agree
with the FCC definition in designating the US CW sub-bands.

And yes, MCW will let you listen to 1 Mhz on a cheap AM radio while a zero
beat oscillator is needed to hear A1A on a cheap AM radio (I had overlooked
that simple fact before).

From: (Michael Black) on Sun, Jan 14 2007
12:24 am

"Dee Flint" ) writes:

Most CW computer programs are set up so that for transmission you set the
radio to CW mode and then run a line from a computer serial port to the
straight key jack on the radio. Therefore you are using an actual A1A
transmission. Right off hand, I don't know any CW programs that feed a tone
into the mic jack although I suppose there could be some out there.

On the other hand, there was a time when some commercial SSB rigs
did use an injected audio tone to send CW. Whether or not they
actually sent A1 would have been determined by the purity of the tone
oscillator, and the carrier suppression and unwanted sideband suppression
of the sideband rig.

Most of the ready-built "CW" or SSB HF transceivers in use
today do that sort of keying. Major reason is keeping the
PA at the same bias for all modes selected; makes for a
simpler mode selection control.

A more common occurance was RTTY, when AFSK was often used to send
FSK on an SSB rig. (I suppose it was more common since it was
easy to unbalance a balanced modulator and just key a stage for
an SSB rig, especially when it came from the factory that way, while
commercial rigs did not tend to have built in FSK ability and of course
frequency shifting often resulted in slight variation of how much shift
occurred depending what you modified and what you shifted.

The first RTTY radio circuits, circa 1930-1960, used
separate exciters to feed Class C biased transmitters.
The exciters (not an exciting name for a separate box)
literally shifted their carrier frequency from Mark to
Space. Those were, generally, crystal controlled but
with an adjustment for the "shift" (of Mark to Space).
Around 1950 the first "VFO" style of FSK exciters
appeared on the radio market.

Doing RTTY via audio frequency initial Mark-Space
shifting is simpler, more stable, but requires a SSB
transmitter system to translate the audio spectrum
into the HF spectrum...which is exactly what a SSB
voice modulator does. Once spectra are translated
there isn't any real difference in frequencies at RF.
Once again, there need be no change in PA biasing
between voice, data, or "CW."

The internal microcontroller of practically every
ready-built SSB transceiver takes care of the shifting
used during a translate of spectra. That's a
relatively simple programming task and, essentially,
invisible to the operator. It should be noted by
operators (but seldom understood) since the adjustment
of "carrier frequency" for operator display versus
mode varies between manufacturers.


This is precisely why two-tone oscillators are needed for testing
SSB transmitters. Because only then are you actually modulating
the output. Otherwise, it's just a carrier.

Quite true and succinctly put, Michael. A single
frequency from any source, translated to HF, will
still be a single frequency. Two frequencies close
together (a "two-tone" source) will still translate
to two RF frequencies close together...those can
simulate a carrier and its single steady-amplitude
AM tone content. [relative amplitudes of the pair
will simulate anything from percentage modulation
(as with AM) or the carrier suppression (of SSB).

What happens at AF to RF translation in THIS group
is the emotional-baggage tie-in to the mythos of
morse such that direct RF on-off keying is somehow
a "pure way" to send "CW." Those lost in the mythos
will contentiously state that audio tone generation
(with on-off keying of the audio) translated to RF
is "false" or "artificial." Those folks just
haven't made the connection to spectral content of
ANY modulated signal...a few even contend that "CW"
(on-off keying) "has no sidebands" because "it is
just turned on or off!" :-)

Perhaps worse is the group that believes
all-Class-C transmitters are "pure" in their
spectral content (as if those had no harmonics)!
Sigh... :-(

wrote:
wrote:
From: on Wed, Jan 10 2007 7:24 pm

AaronJ wrote:
John Smith I wrote:

Minor, inconsequential and random errors are easily programmed into the
computer generated model, but will give the morse that "unique
signature" of the "imitated keyers style."

IMO the perfect fist sounds like computer generated CW. And it's the easiest to
copy. All those so called 'unique fists' can be copied but it's like trying to
understand someone from Brooklyn (or Texas)...

Well, there was some debate about this a few years back. It centered
around a couple of things; 1) being a lack of an actual definition of
Morse Code in Title 47, and 2) the desire of several of the Pro-Code
Test folks to claim that a method of TEACHING Morse Code should be used
as a Morse Code Exam, i.e., the Farnsworth Code.

"Bang on" as the Brits say, Brian.

BTW, it took the FCC years to finally update Part 97 from its
previously OBSOLETE CCITT document reference to the 'proper'
ITU-T document. Even then the proper document, like the old
CCITT one, describes a COMMERCIAL telegram protocol, not an
amateur one.

The FCC should know better than to mix commercial telegram protocol
with amateur protocol. Why, it's off topic...

Morse Code had previously been defined with specific dot, dash, and
space interval ratios. Exams were then defined as Morse Code sent at
rates of 20, 13, and 5 WPM. Today, they use the Teaching Method of
Farnsworth Code, where the dot, dash, and interval can be anything
desired, and character speeds of 13 to 15 WPM for a 5 WPM exam. That's
fine for learning the code as Part 97 doesn't address any particular
method, nor does it advocate any particular vendor such as W5YI or
ARRL.

Yet Part 97 still, even to this day, requires a Morse Code Exam
(Farnsworth isn't mentioned) at a Morse Code Rate of 5 WPM.
Lengthening the space interval isn't addressed as a way to get 13 to 15
WPM character speeds down to 5 WPM word rate. But hey, Part 97 is only
a suggestion, right?

A DEFINITON of WORD RATE is NOT DIRECTLY STATED in Part 97!
Perhaps two sentences could have been included to SET or FIX
the word rate...but the FCC never included that. When that
was 'discussed' in here by the morse mavens, they all pointed
to Paris with an "everybody 'knows' that" kind of attitude.

Like Shirley McClain, they all held hands and faced East.

Heh heh...that's a good way to put it! :-)


And none of that matters now, anyway.

THANK GOD! Miracles can happen. :-)

We'll see. At this point it's an "apparent" miracle.

A pre-destined one, though.


Anyhow, the Pro-Code Exam folks were all over the notion that code was
an individual thing and that each person's code sounded like "speech"
to them because of all of the little and big imperfections, and
sometimes the big imperfections were deliberate. I was chided for
suggesting that manually sent code should be formed as precisely as one
could make it, which sparked another debate. Apparently, humans trying
to send perfect code shouldn't be a goal in amateur radio, even if
unachievable. Which took us full circle to the humans emulating modems
of the original invention of Sammy Morse, the code paper tape with
dashes and longer dashes scribed on them.

Sam's original "code" was all NUMBERS. That's what was used
in the first US telegram company (Washington DC to Baltimore
MD, 1844). Five-number code groups representing "common"
phrases of the 1800s. And, it was done with paper tape with
an ink pen driven by an electromagnet.

Sam's financial angel, Al Vail, came up with the first true
telegraphic code to represent letters and punctuation as well
as just numbers. Sam was running out of numbers in his "code
dictionary" and didn't have enough (or maybe patience) and the
original morse code was NOT speedy...although it really, really
outpaced the common rider-horse courier system for "overnight
delivery" of that time. :-)

Today, code is sent for pleasure. That almost merits a government
exam.

Of course it should be so. screwball grin

Firstly, amateur radio is a national service (like the military) and
all amateurs are portrayed as emergency-rescue heroes vital to
the country. Ergo, since the FCC allows morsemanship to
occur on ham bands, "naturally" there must be a test for it.

That's the thinking of the morse mavens who inhabit this Din of
Inequity.


Oh, well, it was a nice walk in the park. The PCTA folks arguments
were as imperfect as the code they send.

Tsk, tsk, Brian. By their own admission, *all* PCTA send
Perfect Code! Much, much faster than 'we' can realize. :-)

But, in retrospect, all the PCTA had for "reasons" of
retention of the code test amounted to mental conditioning
(brainwashing) over years and years of League emphasis on
that mode. They were subconsciously parroting all of it.

In some cases, it was overt.

Ah, but never EVER admitted! :-)

PCTA will NEVER, ever admit to ANY mental conditioning.
To them amateur radio was all about radiotelegraphy.
Before the turn of the new millennium, every other radio
service had DROPPED OOK CW or never considered it when
that radio service was created. Morsemanship is alive
(and on life support) ONLY in amateur radio today. I say
"only" because a few olde-tymers in other radio services
MIGHT be still using morsemanship but that is NOT what is
the MAJOR MODE of communications.

As long as there is a single one out there...

Sigh...that's about the ONLY thing that justifies their mean
way of acting.

Miccolis will jump in here and say I am "wrong" or
"mistaken" (as is his usual ranting) but it is TRUE.
Except for the die-hard (Bruce Willis wannabes?)
morsemen in ham radio, morse code is DYING if not
dead. THEY are the zombies, the "walking dead" who
strut around pretending to be "champion ops in radio."
Yes, "champion" in the time-frame of the 1930s. This
is 2007, not 70 years ago.



There will be stigmata in the Church of Saint Hiram when the Federal
Register publishes the R&O.

Everyone down to the supermarket...lettuce spray! :-)

LA

wrote:
From: (Michael Black) on Sun, Jan 14 2007
12:24 am

"Dee Flint" ) writes:

Most CW computer programs are set up so that for transmission you set the
radio to CW mode and then run a line from a computer serial port to the
straight key jack on the radio. Therefore you are using an actual A1A
transmission. Right off hand, I don't know any CW programs that feed a tone
into the mic jack although I suppose there could be some out there.

On the other hand, there was a time when some commercial SSB rigs
did use an injected audio tone to send CW. Whether or not they
actually sent A1 would have been determined by the purity of the tone
oscillator, and the carrier suppression and unwanted sideband suppression
of the sideband rig.

Most of the ready-built "CW" or SSB HF transceivers in use
today do that sort of keying.

If you mean they use a keyed audio tone fed into an SSB transmitter,
I think you are mistaken, Len.

Name some HF transceivers in use today that use a keyed
audio tone fed into an SSB transmitter as the way to generate "CW".

I don't think you can. I think you're just guessing.

Or maybe you intentionally imbed false statements in your posts as
a way of attracting attention to yourself....

Major reason is keeping the
PA at the same bias for all modes selected; makes for a
simpler mode selection control.

The same result can be had by using a carrier oscillator and keying one
of
the low level amplifier stages.

The first RTTY radio circuits,

"RTTY radio circuit" is redundant, Len, because the R in "RTTY" means
"radio".

It's like saying "PIN number" or "ATM machine". ;-)

A PROFESSIONAL writer would know that, I think.....

What happens at AF to RF translation in THIS group
is the emotional-baggage tie-in to the mythos of
morse such that direct RF on-off keying is somehow
a "pure way" to send "CW."

Those lost in the mythos
will contentiously state that audio tone generation
(with on-off keying of the audio) translated to RF
is "false" or "artificial."

Who, exactly, says that, Len?

Those folks just
haven't made the connection to spectral content of
ANY modulated signal...a few even contend that "CW"
(on-off keying) "has no sidebands" because "it is
just turned on or off!" :-)

As I have previously written, if you can't tell the difference on a
spectrum analyzer....

Perhaps worse is the group that believes
all-Class-C transmitters are "pure" in their
spectral content (as if those had no harmonics)!
Sigh... :-(

Who believes that, Len?

Class C amplifiers can certainly produce clean signals. They just need
the appropriate amount of filtering of their output to reduce harmonics
to an acceptable level.

wrote in message
oups.com...
From: (Michael Black) on Sun, Jan 14 2007
12:24 am

This is precisely why two-tone oscillators are needed for testing
SSB transmitters. Because only then are you actually modulating
the output. Otherwise, it's just a carrier.

What happens at AF to RF translation in THIS group
is the emotional-baggage tie-in to the mythos of
morse such that direct RF on-off keying is somehow
a "pure way" to send "CW."

You may modulate the carrier with a tone but then it is not actually "CW"
anymore.

You may not think definitions are not important or consider those who wish
to adhere to important definitions to be carrying emotional baggage, but
definitions do have value and can be essential.

Remember the story of the 1800's era Indiana state legislure passing a law
to refine pie by rounding it off from 3.1415 to 3?

Those lost in the mythos
will contentiously state that audio tone generation
(with on-off keying of the audio) translated to RF
is "false" or "artificial."

Without on/off keying of the RF, it is simply is not "CW". I give you this;
you could call audio code that generates 2 RF states such as mark/space to
be "CW's" (continuous waveS). When the frequency or phase changes to a
different value from the original value, the "wave" ceases to be continuous.
However, you could conceive of the two RF states as being 2 continuous waves
that are either present or not, similar to 2 A1A transmissions (where one
continuous wave is present or not).

They are not equivalent. Not the same as A1A Morse. I do not consider belief
in fact to be emotional baggage.

Those folks just
haven't made the connection to spectral content of
ANY modulated signal...a few even contend that "CW"
(on-off keying) "has no sidebands" because "it is
just turned on or off!" :-)

Actually. I have never heard anybody say that. I have heard your
Canadian compatriot talk about transmitting "pure" sine waves which almost
imples no sidebands, when not considering on/off rise and fall times when
the RF is keyed (which he seems to ignore when he say says "pure sine
waves").

Perhaps worse is the group that believes
all-Class-C transmitters are "pure" in their
spectral content (as if those had no harmonics)!
Sigh... :-(

Again, most people who talk about "Class C" amplifiers are familiar with
their bias points being set above cut-off value for increased efficiency,
therefore they have distorted outputs and such people would know know that
they therefore generate lots of harmomics (and in some cases are intended
to, as in the case of frequency markers). Those who are not aware of this
do not tend not to speak about "Class C" amplifiers, specifically. They just
talk about their "linear AMPS" (which are hopefully biased at more like AB
than C :-))

"Stefan Wolfe" ) writes:
"Michael Black" wrote in message
...

If it looks and sounds like CW, then it is CW.

If the carrier of a double sideband AM signal is not keyed on and off, it is
not true CW, no matter how it sounds.

I think the problem is that you are incorrectly equating A1 "CW" to A2 "MCW"
(tone modulated continuous wave).

NO, I'm talking about resutls.

We weren't talking about double sideband, presumably with a carrier.
We were talking about an SSB transmitter.

You can't get a signal that "looks and sounds like CW" if you feed
an audio tone into a transmitter that has a carrier, and/or has two
sidebands. There will at the very least be the carrier and a signal
offset from that carrier by the frequency of the audio tone. If there
are two sidebands, there will be the carrier and then two signals (both
offset from the carrier by the frequency of the audio tone). In neither
of these cases will there be a CW signal.

But feed a pure enough sinewave into an SSB transmitter that has good
carrier balance and good unwanted sideband supression, and you have
a CW signal. It doesn't matter how it's generated, it matters whether
it "looks and sounds like CW".

If you were talking about whistling into an AM (ie dsb with carrier)
transmitter) then all you can ever get is "MCW", aka Modulated CW.

If I misread what kind of transmitter you were talking about, it was precisly
because there is absolutely no way you can get a CW signal by whistling
into an AM (DSB with carrier) transmitter. YOu were the one who said you
were a good whistler.

No, I went back and you were talking about a sideband transmitter.

The results are the results. YOu can't get a CW signal out of an AM
transmitter by injecting an audio tone into it. The output signal
will be the giveaway, and it doesn't matter what method you use.

But if you inject an tone into an SSB transmitter, the results will
be exactly the same as a CW signal, so long as the sinewave is pure
and that ssb transmitter is in good shape.

It's no longer "tone modulated" because you are only issuing a single
frequency.

An AM transmitter does not transmit a signal where the carrier goes
up and down in amplitude. It is a composite signal of three signals.
The carrier, which in effect gets to the antenna because of feedthrough.
Then the two sidebands. Feed a fixed audio tone (say 1KHz) into that
transmitter and you get three signals in the output of that transmitter, the
carrier, and the two sidebands at 1KHz above and below that carrier.
Obviously that can never be a CW signal. But it does show that the
modulating tone is translated to radio frequency. Suppress the carrier,
and the carrier is gone from the output, with the two sidebands still there,
which means two signals each offset from the frequency of the missing
carrier. Suppress the unwanted sideband from that, and you get a single
frequency, which is no different from a carrier out of a CW transmitter.

When you whistle into an SSB transmitter, it can't be CW for the simple
reason that it won't be a pure tone, and the microphone will pick up
background noise, and you will no longer have a single frequency output from
the transmitter.

ONe of your previous posts was about your interpretation of what was wanted,
but it wasn't about understanding what was being sent. The FCC or any
regulatory body doesn't care whether you key an RF oscillator on and off
to generate CW, or if you inject a tone into an SSB transmitter. They
care about the results. Hence if the tone isn't pure, or the SSB
transmitter is not suppressing the carrier or unwanted sideband enough,
then you have an amplitude modulated signal of some sort, and of course
it isn't allowed in the CW sub-band. But neither can you run an AM
transmitter in the CW sub-bands and start modulating it with anything
into the microphone input.

"Acoustic coupling" has nothing to do with what type of signal is
being sent, except so far as it affects the purity of the output signal.

You are confusing Modulated CW with using a pure tone with a good SSB
transmitter. The former will always be an MCW signal, the latter will
be a CW signal so long as things are well adjusted and pure.

Michael VE2BVW

First let me say that, in amateur radio use, the term "CW", when used
to mean a mode of radio communication, is universally defined as "Morse
Code radiotelegraphy by means of an on-off keyed carrier". The literal
"continuous wave" meaning does not apply.

Stefan Wolfe wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...

The big question is whether the signals (keyed carrier vs. keyed audio
tone) look different on a spectrum analyzer. If they don't, why should
FCC care?

I agree that it doesn't matter to the FCC as long is the keyed audio tone is
coupled to the radio with EM waves such as with light (optoisolators), RF or
wires (electrical connections).

However, if you couple the keyed audio carrier acoustically, speaker-to-mike
using only sound waves, then that is J3E and only permissible in the voice
portion of the band.

No, that's just not true - *IF* the rig and tone are clean enough.

Problems arise when the tone is not a pure sinusoid, or the transmitter
does not have adequate carrier- or unwanted sideband-suppression. But
that's
not what is being discussed here.

Feed a Morse-Code-keyed audio tone that is a pure sinusoid into an SSB
transmitter of sufficient quality, and the result is "CW".

It doesn't matter how the tone gets into the transmitter, as long as
the process doesn't introduce other tones or artifacts.

If I were to whistle nearly pure sine waves (I am a good whistler, perhaps
you have seen paintings of my mother :-)) in Morse code into the mike input,
it might look like CW and sound like CW but it would really be J3E, hence
illegal in the CW sub-bands.

No, that's not true, unless the whistle isn't a pure sine wave.

Using acoustic coupling (J3E), it becomes a slippery slope; first computer
generated tones, then human whistling, then humming and before you know it,
"talking" (di dah di dah etc.. and finally, "words" :-))

Not a slippery slope at all. All that matters is what it looks like to
a spectrum analyzer. If the whistle is a pure sine wave, the output
will be a single carrier. But if it's not a pure sine wave, the result
will be spectrally different, and illegal.

From a regulations standpoint, it does not matter how the signal is
generated. What does matter is that it meets the standards of spectrum
purity.

Now you might argue that a simple "CW" transmitter using keyed Class C
stages and vacuum tubes can be much simpler, more electrically
efficient, and certainly more elegant than a newfangled
computer-SSB-transceiver-kluge-setup, yet deliver a signal of equal
quality. That's true - but it's a different issue.