(Len Over 21) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian the Bluffman's Home Companion Kelly) writes:

As you will say later, those "analog" radios have INFINITE resolution. :-)

Creative PLL and DDS subsystems of today, designed by others,
make it possible for anyone to select 10 Hz increments on any
HF band (30,000 frequencies within 300 KHz) with crystal-
controlled accuracy.

Analog VFOs are continuously variable. Making it possible for anyone
to select an *infinite* number of "increments" within a 300Hz
bandwidth much less your coarse 300 Khz wide example.

Heh heh heh...your bafflegab won't win blind man's bluff, Kellie,
deal yourself a better hand... :-)

Feel free to try to state you can return to that "infinite possible"
setting within a few PPM...all without any old crystal calibrator and
dependent on that "coarse" analog dial. :-)

Whatta lame whack at a twist. I didn't claim any such nonsense did I?

Heh heh heh...your bafflegab won't win blind man's bluff Sweetums,
deal yourself a better hand... :-)

And they do it
without generating any phase noise or other forms of crud synthesizers
toss out.

Kellie, define "phase noise" insofar as amateur radio operation is
concerned.

No sweat Sweetums. If I terminate the rcvr input with a 50 ohm dummy
load via a short length of coax and am able to hear any gurgles,
chirps, squeaks, pings, skips or burps when I swish around some freq
or another it's synthesizer crud, i.e., "phase noise" in play. However
with current-tech ham gear internally-generated crud is not often a
big problem these days since it's usually below the atmospheric and/or
electrical QRN noise floor on the band under consideration. Which is
easy enough to check. Welome to the realities of "phase noise "insofar
as amateur radio operation is concerned" Sweetums.


You, for the limits of your technical knowledge, should
call that "incidental FM" which is what the industry term "phase
noise" refers. :-)

Maybe when ham radio ceases to be a hobby and becomes an "industry"
Sweetums.

Then you should examine exactly how low that terrible phase
noise
is. You can use the term "dbc"

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .


referring to the number of decibels
below the "carrier" (center frequency reference, not a modulated
carrier per se). The "crud" (as you term it) is quite far down in
relative power and certainly won't affect morse code reception of an
on-off keyed station's carrier.

"Phase noise" is a somewhat new buzzword in industry due to the
importance of keeping it low for QAM signals (Quadrature [phase]
Amplitude Modulation, a combination of PM and AM). The cell
phone engineers will know of that importance on keeping the BER
(Bit Error Rate) as low as possible. The amount of work in the last
decade on cellular telephony techniques has been enormous
worldwide. It's only natural that industry advertisements, from sub-
system components to full systems, emphasize a low "phase noise."

As far as on-off keyed radiotelegraphy, your mention of "phase noise"
as being "crud" in synthesizer frequency control is akin to making
a big case for gold-plated music system speaker wires. :-)

It is ignorance to discount the possibility of "crud" being non-existant
in analog mixing frequency generators. Those analog "infinitely-
variable" oscillators are just as prone as anything to "phase noise."
The wrong selection of mixing frequencies will produce spurious
responses...one of the papers I wrote at RCA was on quick
identification of such possible spurs (not the first, but it was a
very quick way to determine them).

(Long pause to let the fog clear)

(Amos nudges Andy) "I thnk it's over, he melted down in his own hot
air bafflegab again, wake up."
Andy: "Are you sure? I can use more Zs."


My FT-847, which is not much as ham xcvrs go, can be tuned in 1 Hz
increments vs. the "make it possible for anyone to select 10 Hz
increments" thingey you cite above.

10 Hz increments is common in installed equipment (including the
ham consumer market) in the past two decades. I know there are
smaller increments...:-)...but I also have to play to the common
denominator of technical expertise in here.

10 Hz increments are perfectly fine for SSB voice tuning, as I've
found out with my Icom R-70.

Heh. You can't tune that pore 'ole 3-star boat anchor in 10 Hz
increments Sweetums, the best you can do with the thing is tune it to
the nearest 100 Hz increment yes? Of course you silly old thing. I've
never seen an R-70 in the flesh so tell me, are those actually Nixies
in the display for God's sake?!

If that old R-70 is your "window" to ham radio I think I'm starting to
understand why you have a dour view of the hobby. You need to get past
the R-70 and try a JRC NRD 545 Sweetums, like the one I have. It'll
change your life.

The bald fact of the mattter is that once more a PCTA caught you
bafflegabbing again Sweetums, wasn't even a decent try so once more no
cigar for you.


When I bought my R-70 (years ago), the three extras at work in the
Van Nuys, CA, store . . .

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .


. . . didn't know squat how Icom was able to do it
with 10 KHz reference frequencies to the PFDs (factor of 1000:1)
there. Turns out Icom has a neat 3-loop PLL arrangment, doesn't
go into DDS or Fractional-N at all. Minimal phase noise and no
discernable "crud" anywhere within full tuning range.

Okay, so your spiffy-schmiffy 1 Hz resolution "xcver" is "guarnateed"
accurate because it has a "digital dial?" I don't think so. Exact 1 Hz
settings imply 100 PPB (Parts Per Billion) accuracy of the master
reference oscillator. You will NOT be able to hold such accuracy
and be believable to anyone who has worked to such accuracies in
crystal oscillators. Certainly not for the ham consumer market.

Fella named John R. Vig (unusual surname) is a good name to
remember on what can be done and can't be done with crystal
oscillators. Big name in the frequency control part of electronics
industry, probably not in the pages of QST. :-)

(Amos nudges Andy) "I thnk it's over, he melted down in his own hot
air bafflegab again, wake up."
Andy: "Are you sure? I can use more Zs."


You obviously need to spend
considerable time leafing thru the ham catalogs to get up to speed on
the equipment we use before you spout off and continue to goose up
your "coefficient of ignornace" on the subject of ham radio in general
and the equipment we use. Again. Gets boring.

True. I never bothered to memorize advertisements in QST by
heart...like so many PCTA extras do. :-)

Like who? Exactly.

I rather prefer what I've been exposed to since 1963 on frequency
control methods...

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .


beginning with those "cruddy" synthesizers
(without "real" frequencies, only the "synthetic" variety)...and
quartz crystal oscillator accuracy and stability to the 10 PPB
region.

Common ham radio quartz crystals have guaranteed accuracies
to 50 PPM typical. That translates to 500 Hz at 10 MHz, by way
of example. 1 Hz accuracy at 10 MHz is 100 PPB, or 500 times
closer.

yadda, yadda, more of the usual . . .

Then there are the few "drudges" (like myself) who've
gotten our hands dirty doing the design and testing of synthesizers.

Then there are drudges like me who have ham licenses and and put
technoligies to work on the airwaves whilst all you're allowed to do
is bafflegab about 'em with your keyboard.

I'm sorry that my technical competence seems like "bafflegab"
to you. Some further learning of the radio technical arts would
erase some of your ignorance and lend credence to what I've
said. Like, I could ask you "how's the zeta of your control loop"
and you would be out to lunch, cussing and hollering "bafflegab!"

No Sweetums, not at all, that's not the way I work. You're being silly
again. If by any chance I ran into an arcane topic like that in which
I had any interest whatsoever I'd ask an EE to uncurl it for me.
Miccolis is across town. Then comes the non-ham PhD EE Dean at one the
universities in this neck of the woods I know well. Or my buddy
another N3/EE who goes back to our high high school days together and
ran GE's gummint relations operations in Valley Forge, etc. etc.

- - - - -

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .

"Zeta" is the symbol for the response characteristic in a closed
loop of a PLL, Fractional-N, or hybrid PLL-DDS system.

Wunnerful ducky wunnerful:

Now take a break from your bafflegabbery Sweetums and let's play in my
field of professional expertise this time. Demonstrate your level of
technical competence by solving a very real-world electronics design
problem. Assume that you have a one inch diameter x 1/16 inch wall x
eight foot long 6061T651 aluminum tube fully restrained at one end
with the other and dangling horizontally in the wind. Calculate the
maximum wind speed which will not produce permanent deformation of the
tube.

An
important factor for lock-in and stability and anyone designing
the loop filter for a synthesizer should recognize that common
term.

I've never dined in the executive dining room (the counterpart to
your "captain's table" BS) in any electronic corporation

Hee! No surprise at all there Sweetums, there are obvious reasons . .
.. ah, never mind!

but I
HAVE designed and made frequency synthesizers. Hands-on
work all the way, from the initial paper work-up to long hours
in the environmental lab...to accuracies in 100 PPB over
full military environment. Interesting, challenging work!

So solving the tube-bending problem is a piece of cake for a
duz-it-all "engineering genius" like you eh Sweetums?


USING modern equipment is NOT involving development or
anything else. Try not to run off at the mouth/keyboard so
hastily. Try not to nit-pick like nits over minor phrases in
postings so that you have an "excuse" to cuss and snarl at
NCTAs. It makes you look like nursie's cousin. :-)

"Try not to nit-pick . . . ?!" WTF . . ? Bwaaahahaha - from the master
of all RRAP nit-pickers!!

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(Len Over 21) wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Brian Kelly) writes:

As you will say later, those "analog" radios have INFINITE resolution.
:-)

Creative PLL and DDS subsystems of today, designed by others,
make it possible for anyone to select 10 Hz increments on any
HF band (30,000 frequencies within 300 KHz) with crystal-
controlled accuracy.

Analog VFOs are continuously variable. Making it possible for anyone
to select an *infinite* number of "increments" within a 300Hz
bandwidth much less your coarse 300 Khz wide example.

Heh heh heh...your bafflegab won't win blind man's bluff, Kellie,
deal yourself a better hand... :-)

Feel free to try to state you can return to that "infinite possible"
setting within a few PPM...all without any old crystal calibrator and
dependent on that "coarse" analog dial. :-)

Whatta lame whack at a twist. I didn't claim any such nonsense did I?

No.

What you *did* claim was that you could operate within 200 Hz of a band edge
and know you were inside, using certain '50s/60s vintage equipment. Which is e
a reasonable claim for the equipment involved.

btw, back in 1975 or so I designed and built a "digital dial". The way it
worked was that it used TTL 74192 presettable up-down counters to count the
tunable oscillator. You'd adjust dip switches for the offset and direction of
each band and mode. Its time base was a 400 kHz xtal, easily zeroed to within a
few Hz of WWV. The thing normally read out in 100 Hz increments but could be
switched to 10 Hz or 1 Hz. Its accuracy was dependent on how well you set the
time base and presets. Could be used with almost any rig. Hooked it up to a
75S3 and got an A in the course. And yes, you could easily reset it to 100 Hz.
10 Hz took a steady hand.

Later I saw a better design. It sampled and counted all the oscillators in a
rig, and displayed the total. No presets to adjust - set the timebase to WWV
and you're done. Could go to 1 Hz if you were willing to have it update once
per second.


Heh heh heh...your bafflegab won't win blind man's bluff Sweetums,
deal yourself a better hand... :-)

Just watch...

And they do it
without generating any phase noise or other forms of crud synthesizers
toss out.

Kellie, define "phase noise" insofar as amateur radio operation is
concerned.

No sweat Sweetums. If I terminate the rcvr input with a 50 ohm dummy
load via a short length of coax and am able to hear any gurgles,
chirps, squeaks, pings, skips or burps when I swish around some freq
or another it's synthesizer crud, i.e., "phase noise" in play. However
with current-tech ham gear internally-generated crud is not often a
big problem these days since it's usually below the atmospheric and/or
electrical QRN noise floor on the band under consideration. Which is
easy enough to check. Welome to the realities of "phase noise "insofar
as amateur radio operation is concerned" Sweetums.

Sort of.

You, for the limits of your technical knowledge, should
call that "incidental FM" which is what the industry term "phase
noise" refers. :-)

Maybe when ham radio ceases to be a hobby and becomes an "industry"
Sweetums.

Then you should examine exactly how low that terrible phase
noise
is. You can use the term "dbc"

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .

referring to the number of decibels
below the "carrier" (center frequency reference, not a modulated
carrier per se). The "crud" (as you term it) is quite far down in
relative power and certainly won't affect morse code reception of an
on-off keyed station's carrier.

Wrong. Incorrect. Not true at all in the real world of HF radio.

Len has just demonstrated, once more, that he just doesn't get it.

"Phase noise" is a somewhat new buzzword in industry due to the
importance of keeping it low for QAM signals (Quadrature [phase]
Amplitude Modulation, a combination of PM and AM). The cell
phone engineers will know of that importance on keeping the BER
(Bit Error Rate) as low as possible. The amount of work in the last
decade on cellular telephony techniques has been enormous
worldwide. It's only natural that industry advertisements, from sub-
system components to full systems, emphasize a low "phase noise."

Has nothing to do with the subject at hand, which is HF amateur radio.

As far as on-off keyed radiotelegraphy, your mention of "phase noise"
as being "crud" in synthesizer frequency control is akin to making
a big case for gold-plated music system speaker wires. :-)

Wrong again, Len.

It is ignorance to discount the possibility of "crud" being non-existant
in analog mixing frequency generators. Those analog "infinitely-
variable" oscillators are just as prone as anything to "phase noise."
The wrong selection of mixing frequencies will produce spurious
responses...one of the papers I wrote at RCA was on quick
identification of such possible spurs (not the first, but it was a
very quick way to determine them).

Misses the point completely.

(Long pause to let the fog clear)

(Amos nudges Andy) "I thnk it's over, he melted down in his own hot
air bafflegab again, wake up."
Andy: "Are you sure? I can use more Zs."

Here's what *really* happens:

In an ideal superheterodyne, all the oscillators would generate pure, steady
injection signals. In reality, there is always some imperfections in those
oscillator signals. In modern frequency synthesizers, particularly PLL types,
the imperfection takes the form of noise sidebands on the oscillator signal.

Now even first-generation designs had noise sidebands many dB below the desired
LO signal. Someone who doesn't really understand the situation might react as
Len does, saying that such low-level noise can't have any real effect on
receiving the desired signal.

Trouble is, in the amateur HF environment we often want to listen to a weak
signal surrounded by many strong ones, often only a kHz or two away. Good
crystal and mechanical filters make it possible to separate such signals *if*
they can get to the filter in decent shape.

What happens when the LO signal is phase-noisy is that a close-in-frequency
unwanted signal mixes with the LO *noise*, and produces noise in the receiver
output. With a whole bunch of strong signals, the noise can be so high that it
drowns out the wanted signal. This problem is not due to IMD, blocking or other
various nonlinearities in the front end - it's due to phase noise alone. And in
modern ham xcvrs where the signal is first converted up to about 70 MHz and
then converted down to about 8.8 MHz by means of synthesized LOs, the problem
can be severe.

Scenario: Ham in Texas is trying to work Europeans in CQWW on 40 meters. He
points his 3 elements at 90 feet towards EU. Which also means towards a lot of
the Northeast. There's lots of points to be had working the low-power
limited-antenna hams there. But to do it, he has to be able to pick their
less-than-a-microvolt signals out from between the forest of locals and East
Coast legal-limit folks. And the band is busy - a signal every few hundred Hz
from 7000 to 7070 or more. Plus the usual cast of megawatt SWBC above 7100 and
below 7000, blasting away with big antennas aimed right at him. 100,000
microvolt and bigger signals aren't rare in such scenarios.

If his receiver's LO is noisy, he'll hear all that off-frequency RF as noise.
And he won't hear the low-power limited-antenna less-than-a-microvolt stations
he's trying to work. All the Inrads and DSP in the catalogs won't do any good
in such a situation.

That's why phase noise is important to hams.

My FT-847, which is not much as ham xcvrs go, can be tuned in 1 Hz
increments vs. the "make it possible for anyone to select 10 Hz
increments" thingey you cite above.

10 Hz increments is common in installed equipment (including the
ham consumer market) in the past two decades. I know there are
smaller increments...:-)...but I also have to play to the common
denominator of technical expertise in here.

1 Hz is common in modern manufactured amateur equipment. But that's not really
the issue.

10 Hz increments are perfectly fine for SSB voice tuning, as I've
found out with my Icom R-70.

Heh. You can't tune that pore 'ole 3-star boat anchor in 10 Hz
increments Sweetums, the best you can do with the thing is tune it to
the nearest 100 Hz increment yes? Of course you silly old thing. I've
never seen an R-70 in the flesh so tell me, are those actually Nixies
in the display for God's sake?!

R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

If that old R-70 is your "window" to ham radio I think I'm starting to
understand why you have a dour view of the hobby. You need to get past
the R-70 and try a JRC NRD 545 Sweetums, like the one I have. It'll
change your life.

The bald fact of the mattter is that once more a PCTA caught you
bafflegabbing again Sweetums, wasn't even a decent try so once more no
cigar for you.

When I bought my R-70 (years ago), the three extras at work in the
Van Nuys, CA, store . . .

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .

. . . didn't know squat how Icom was able to do it
with 10 KHz reference frequencies to the PFDs (factor of 1000:1)
there.

So what?

Turns out Icom has a neat 3-loop PLL arrangment, doesn't
go into DDS or Fractional-N at all. Minimal phase noise and no
discernable "crud" anywhere within full tuning range.

How many points did Len get with it in the last CQWW? Or even the last SS or
Field Day?

Okay, so your spiffy-schmiffy 1 Hz resolution "xcver" is "guarnateed"
accurate because it has a "digital dial?" I don't think so.

Nobody claimed that it was accurate. It *is* precise, however. Big difference.

Exact 1 Hz
settings imply 100 PPB (Parts Per Billion) accuracy of the master
reference oscillator.

Let's see - 1 part per million is 10 Hz at 10 MHz. Or 1000 parts per billion.
So 100 parts per billion is 1 Hz at 10 MHz.

You will NOT be able to hold such accuracy
and be believable to anyone who has worked to such accuracies in
crystal oscillators. Certainly not for the ham consumer market.

Nobody is claiming that kind of *accuracy*. Only that kind of *precision*.

Fella named John R. Vig (unusual surname) is a good name to
remember on what can be done and can't be done with crystal
oscillators. Big name in the frequency control part of electronics
industry, probably not in the pages of QST. :-)

(Amos nudges Andy) "I thnk it's over, he melted down in his own hot
air bafflegab again, wake up."
Andy: "Are you sure? I can use more Zs."

Yup.

Of course there's an easy and quick check of all this. Just tune in WWV and see
what the fancy digidial says when you zero beat the carrier in SSB mode. That
will tell you how accurate the reference oscillator is. Traceable directly to
NIST via the F2 layer. If you're at all careful you can get to the point where
the S meter needle is slowly fluctuating as the frequency/phase difference
wanders...

btw, some years back I was there, at NIST in Boulder. Saw the various standards
and how they keep WWV synchronized. Also visited the WWV/WWVB transmitter site.
Got lots of pictures, too.

You obviously need to spend
considerable time leafing thru the ham catalogs to get up to speed on
the equipment we use before you spout off and continue to goose up
your "coefficient of ignornace" on the subject of ham radio in general
and the equipment we use. Again. Gets boring.

True. I never bothered to memorize advertisements in QST by
heart...like so many PCTA extras do. :-)

Like who? Exactly.

I rather prefer what I've been exposed to since 1963 on frequency
control methods...

Still living in the past...

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .

beginning with those "cruddy" synthesizers
(without "real" frequencies, only the "synthetic" variety)...and
quartz crystal oscillator accuracy and stability to the 10 PPB
region.

Common ham radio quartz crystals have guaranteed accuracies
to 50 PPM typical.

Typically expressed as .005%. Of course that's the accuracy of the xtal itself,
before being zeroed to a better reference. WW2 FT-243s were typically good for
..005%, we do a lot better now.

That translates to 500 Hz at 10 MHz, by way
of example. 1 Hz accuracy at 10 MHz is 100 PPB, or 500 times
closer.

yadda, yadda, more of the usual . . .

WWV. Trimmer capacitor. Zero beat. What a concept.

Then there are the few "drudges" (like myself) who've
gotten our hands dirty doing the design and testing of synthesizers.

Then there are drudges like me who have ham licenses and and put
technoligies to work on the airwaves whilst all you're allowed to do
is bafflegab about 'em with your keyboard.

I'm sorry that my technical competence seems like "bafflegab"
to you. Some further learning of the radio technical arts would
erase some of your ignorance and lend credence to what I've
said. Like, I could ask you "how's the zeta of your control loop"
and you would be out to lunch, cussing and hollering "bafflegab!"

No Sweetums, not at all, that's not the way I work. You're being silly
again. If by any chance I ran into an arcane topic like that in which
I had any interest whatsoever I'd ask an EE to uncurl it for me.

Engineering 101: Don't reinvent the wheel. They even taught us EEs that one.

Miccolis is across town. Then comes the non-ham PhD EE Dean at one the
universities in this neck of the woods I know well. Or my buddy
another N3/EE who goes back to our high high school days together and
ran GE's gummint relations operations in Valley Forge, etc. etc.

And that's just the first string...

- - - - -

Amos: "Oh crap, here he goes again."
Andy: "Nudge me when he runs outta wind willya?" Zzzzz . .

"Zeta" is the symbol for the response characteristic in a closed
loop of a PLL, Fractional-N, or hybrid PLL-DDS system.

Wunnerful ducky wunnerful:

Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of yarns and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened. Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on the air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Now take a break from your bafflegabbery Sweetums and let's play in my
field of professional expertise this time. Demonstrate your level of
technical competence by solving a very real-world electronics design
problem. Assume that you have a one inch diameter x 1/16 inch wall x
eight foot long 6061T651 aluminum tube fully restrained at one end
with the other and dangling horizontally in the wind. Calculate the
maximum wind speed which will not produce permanent deformation of the
tube.

That's easy! Would take me about sixty seconds to get the answer.

An
important factor for lock-in and stability and anyone designing
the loop filter for a synthesizer should recognize that common
term.

Of course. Who designed the R-70? I bet it wasn't Len Anderson...

I've never dined in the executive dining room (the counterpart to
your "captain's table" BS) in any electronic corporation

Hee! No surprise at all there Sweetums, there are obvious reasons . .
. ah, never mind!

but I
HAVE designed and made frequency synthesizers. Hands-on
work all the way, from the initial paper work-up to long hours
in the environmental lab...to accuracies in 100 PPB over
full military environment. Interesting, challenging work!

So solving the tube-bending problem is a piece of cake for a
duz-it-all "engineering genius" like you eh Sweetums?

USING modern equipment is NOT involving development or
anything else. Try not to run off at the mouth/keyboard so
hastily. Try not to nit-pick like nits over minor phrases in
postings so that you have an "excuse" to cuss and snarl at
NCTAs. It makes you look like nursie's cousin. :-)

"Try not to nit-pick . . . ?!" WTF . . ? Bwaaahahaha - from the master
of all RRAP nit-pickers!!

The main point is simple: Hams did not need synthesizers to stay in their bands
and subbands. Nor do they need 1 Hz or even 10 Hz accuracy on HF.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:


In an ideal superheterodyne, all the oscillators would generate pure, steady
injection signals. In reality, there is always some imperfections in those
oscillator signals. In modern frequency synthesizers, particularly PLL types,
the imperfection takes the form of noise sidebands on the oscillator signal.

Technically wrong. DDS is more susceptible to spur generation and
phase noise than Fractional-N and Fractional-N is more susceptible
to that than PLLs.

Tsk. You haven't spent much time with a spectrum analyzer...


Trouble is, in the amateur HF environment we often want to listen to a weak
signal surrounded by many strong ones, often only a kHz or two away. Good
crystal and mechanical filters make it possible to separate such signals *if*
they can get to the filter in decent shape.

What happens when the LO signal is phase-noisy is that a close-in-frequency
unwanted signal mixes with the LO *noise*, and produces noise in the receiver
output. With a whole bunch of strong signals, the noise can be so high that
it drowns out the wanted signal. This problem is not due to IMD, blocking or
other
various nonlinearities in the front end - it's due to phase noise alone.

Tsk. Simplistic untruth.

Intermodulation distortion and front end noise is enough to cause that.
As part of the IMD, the 3rd Order Intercept point values figure in.

You can get IMD in stages beyond the mixer. To "prove" that point,
you would have to measure the IMD at various gain settings (manual
or AGC).

The worst part of that untrue statement is that "all those other things"
were existant before the advent of frequency control by synthesizer.
In ham radios as well as the radios in every other radio service.


1 Hz is common in modern manufactured amateur equipment. But that's not
really the issue.

Tsk. Why are Jimmie and Kellie trying to make so much of that
resolution? :-)


R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

Only for a small liferaft. It can be easily carried in one hand. It comes
equipped with a handle on the side, apparently for that purpose. :-)

But, you will try to use my owning an R-70 as all sorts of denigrations.
Kellie did...and was completely wrong...but then he only "favors" those
equipments that he's owned or has handled.


How many points did Len get with it in the last CQWW? Or even the last SS or
Field Day?

Irrelevant. Had I an HF-privilege ham license, I wouldn't bother with
contesting. I've said that before.

If I wanted sports, I would go to athletics...REAL sport.

[if I wanted "road races," I'd get a sports car as I used to have and
do minor gymkhanas, etc., in REAL road races]

btw, some years back I was there, at NIST in Boulder. Saw the various
standards
and how they keep WWV synchronized. Also visited the WWV/WWVB transmitter
site. Got lots of pictures, too.

Okay, so your resume got rejected. Sorry to hear about it. Glad you
got nice pictures.

Anyone can see nice pictures at the NIST website.


Still living in the past...

Tsk. You are repeating yourself...as you've done many times in the
past.


Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had
all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all
modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of yarns
and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened.
Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham
had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on the
air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Poor baby. Still with the insults sugar-coated with hypocritical
"civility?"

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

Became a professional in the radio-electronics industry, got regular
money for not only designing, but building and testing, following
through in the field, etc., etc., on many projects.

Do you find that without honor? Without any worth?

Why do you?


The main point is simple: Hams did not need synthesizers to stay in their
bands and subbands. Nor do they need 1 Hz or even 10 Hz accuracy on HF.

In Jimmie's world, yes. :-)

It must be right across the border from nursieworld. :-)

Tsk. Some "runner." Takes up one phrase and runs and runs and
runs trying to prove another is unworthy in his presence. :-)

Tsk. Those runs could be cured with some kaopectate...

On 29 Sep 2004 17:17:01 GMT, (Avery Fineman)
wrote:

In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:
snip

R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

Only for a small liferaft. It can be easily carried in one hand. It comes
equipped with a handle on the side, apparently for that purpose. :-)

I agree - I still use my R-70 almost daily. Bought it new in 1981,
still works quite well (its tuning arrangement is a bit weird at the
"xx.000" MHz areas, but once you get used to that it's OK...). This
was an impressive rig when it was first introduced - and with the Kiwa
filters installed it can pull DX signals out of the mud as well as
many of the current receivers in its class.

Still an excellent performer, actually - one of the best investments
in radio equipment that I have ever made.

If only it had some of the features of the R-71 - direct frequency
entry, capability for computer control.....oh well.....

snip




73, Leo

In article , Leo
writes:

On 29 Sep 2004 17:17:01 GMT, (Avery Fineman)
wrote:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:
snip

R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

Only for a small liferaft. It can be easily carried in one hand. It
comes
equipped with a handle on the side, apparently for that purpose. :-)

I agree - I still use my R-70 almost daily. Bought it new in 1981,
still works quite well (its tuning arrangement is a bit weird at the
"xx.000" MHz areas, but once you get used to that it's OK...). This
was an impressive rig when it was first introduced - and with the Kiwa
filters installed it can pull DX signals out of the mud as well as
many of the current receivers in its class.

It's still a tiny thing, hardly a "boatanchor" (unless one has a 1/12th
scale model of a boat).

I agree on the "xx.000" MHz switch-over. :-) That might have been
a programmer's thing on what I speculate as a design argument at
Icom...how to do switching to the adjacent MHz. They might have
added some "hysteresis" on tuning but one can become
accoustomed to it. I got no mods in this one.

Still an excellent performer, actually - one of the best investments
in radio equipment that I have ever made.

I will agree to that. [I think we bought at about the same time]
The tuning shaft encoder and very slight friction lock is still as
good on mine now as when it was new. Over a dozen years.

If only it had some of the features of the R-71 - direct frequency
entry, capability for computer control.....oh well.....

I thought about adding an outboard controller to have all the
"memory" things but used the parts for other things. :-)

It definitely needs an outboard audio amplifier and big speaker
since the little one on the panel is not robust for anyone else
but self. For a while I used an old Hi-Fi mono amplifier with it and
an ancient 6" diameter speaker in a fair enclosure. Sound was
just dandy then.

Since wife and I had a major re-do of the roof and guttering, I've
been meaning to try connecting to the end of the 45-foot run of
seamless alumininum gutter on the downhill side (it is 22 feet
longer on the uphill side, but closer to power lines). Need to
recalibrate the Noise Bridge and see what kind of weird
impedance it presents at different frequencie...and the change
of that in the rain to come. :-) Sort of a "low-slung long wire"
in a way. [watch for all the detractors on that...heh heh heh[

In this in-the-hills location there's little chance for low-angle
skip arrival from north to east...all the fancy-schmansy antennas
won't help getting Yurp or the UK here. Nevis rules. Excellent
on Ozzyland and the home of the Middle Earth and LOTR.

Strange that so MANY signals on HF originate from stations
whose operators don't have to have a code exam...or even an
amateur radio license. :-) Outside of the ham bands, of
coarse. :-)

Avery Fineman wrote:

In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:


Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had
all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all
modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of yarns
and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened.
Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham
had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on the
air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Poor baby. Still with the insults sugar-coated with hypocritical
"civility?"

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

Really? Did you do lots of contesting and DXing from ADA? Still have
the QSLs?

Became a professional in the radio-electronics industry, got regular
money for not only designing, but building and testing, following
through in the field, etc., etc., on many projects.

Do you find that without honor? Without any worth?

Len, I have known many men who have done similar work. With few
exceptions, I have viewed their work as honorable. It obviously had
worth as all of them received paychecks. We radio amateurs don't
receive paychecks for what we do. We do it strictly for the love of
it. I'm sure your professional achievements have pleased you. They
don't get you any passes in amateur radio. What pleases you hasn't
necessarily impressed us.

Your grating manner and rudeness to radio amateurs have not endeared you
to more than a couple of people here. You strike me as the kind of guy
who goes wandering through life asking, "Why don't people like me?".
I'll bet you haven't an idea of the answer.


The main point is simple: Hams did not need synthesizers to stay in their
bands and subbands. Nor do they need 1 Hz or even 10 Hz accuracy on HF.

In Jimmie's world, yes. :-)

....in anyone's world, Leonard. It is simply fact. You were wrong. :-)

Deal with it.

Dave K8MN

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:

Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had
all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all
modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to
actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of
yarns
and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened.
Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham
had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a
QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on
the
air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this
bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Poor baby. Still with the insults sugar-coated with hypocritical
"civility?"

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

Really? Did you do lots of contesting and DXing from ADA? Still have
the QSLs?

Tsk. Poor Davie doesn't understand that 24/7 REAL communications
in the military wasn't any "contest" and no "QSLs" were exchanged.

So, Davie, did you do much contesting from those embassies in
the middle of Africa or from Finland? Get many QSLs?


Len, I have known many men who have done similar work. With few
exceptions, I have viewed their work as honorable.

I'll bet you didn't understand much of it...

It obviously had
worth as all of them received paychecks.

No "A" grades on their report cards? Tsk.

We radio amateurs don't
receive paychecks for what we do. We do it strictly for the love of
it.

Tsk. Ask the behind-the-counter types at HRO if they do 9-5
for free... :-)

I'm sure your professional achievements have pleased you.

They sure did.

They don't get you any passes in amateur radio.

Yes, and amateur radio licenses don't mean squat to legal
operating in the rest of the radio world.

Sunnuvagun!

What pleases you hasn't necessarily impressed us.

Yes, your supreme royalness. Humblest of apologies, your worship.

Your grating manner and rudeness to radio amateurs have not endeared you
to more than a couple of people here.

Awwwww.

Tsk. Nothing an NCTA says can please the PCTA extras...or the
World's Greatest DXer. :-)

You strike me as the kind of guy
who goes wandering through life asking, "Why don't people like me?".

Tsk. Don't project your own personality on others.

I'll bet you haven't an idea of the answer.

Tsk, tsk. We all know you don't.


...in anyone's world, Leonard. It is simply fact. You were wrong. :-)

Nope.

Deal with it.

No problem.

Now, why can't Mr. DX handle opposite opinions to his?

Answer: He never could! :-)

Len Over 21 wrote:

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

Really? Did you do lots of contesting and DXing from ADA? Still have
the QSLs?

Tsk. Poor Davie doesn't understand that 24/7 REAL communications
in the military wasn't any "contest" and no "QSLs" were exchanged.

You can understand my confusion when you wrote about losing "interest in
DXing in 'radio sports' and the wallpaper collection of QSLs after
working at station ADA long ago". You made it sound as if you got a
belly full of those things at ADA. So am I to understand that you have
no actual experience in DXing, contesting or QSLing?

So, Davie, did you do much contesting from those embassies in
the middle of Africa or from Finland? Get many QSLs?

Well, Lennie, my contesting overseas was from my home, not from an
embassy. I did plenty of contesting and plenty of DXing. I was never
in "the middle of Africa", only in West Africa, Southern Africa and East
Africa. Yes, I received tens of thousands of QSL cards for each of
those African operations. Of course I didn't operate 24/7, only in my
spare time and I didn't have a staff of operators. There was just me.

Len, I have known many men who have done similar work. With few
exceptions, I have viewed their work as honorable.

I'll bet you didn't understand much of it...

So....they weren't honorable men, doing honorable work?

It obviously had
worth as all of them received paychecks.

No "A" grades on their report cards? Tsk.

Was their goal to obtain good grades? Tsk, tsk.

We radio amateurs don't
receive paychecks for what we do. We do it strictly for the love of
it.

Tsk. Ask the behind-the-counter types at HRO if they do 9-5
for free... :-)

Are those men working as radio amateurs or is amateur radio what they do
as an avocation? Tsk, tsk. :-) :-)

I'm sure your professional achievements have pleased you.

They sure did.

I thought as much since you've recounted them for us here on numerous
occasions.

They don't get you any passes in amateur radio.

Yes, and amateur radio licenses don't mean squat to legal
operating in the rest of the radio world.

I fail to see what difference that makes. Why should we, as radio
amateurs, posting in an amateur radio newsgroup, be concerned about what
qualifications are required for other services? Is is your aspiration
to participate in other radio service? Please, go forth and do so.

Sunnuvagun!

Yeah. You made a rather pointless comment.

What pleases you hasn't necessarily impressed us.

Yes, your supreme royalness. Humblest of apologies, your worship.

I don't sense sincerity from you.

Your grating manner and rudeness to radio amateurs have not endeared you
to more than a couple of people here.

Awwwww.

Tsk. Nothing an NCTA says can please the PCTA extras...or the
World's Greatest DXer. :-)

I'm not the World's Greatest DXer but I thank you and your little
electrolyte for the compliments. There are things that you could write
which would please me. You just haven't written any of them.

You strike me as the kind of guy
who goes wandering through life asking, "Why don't people like me?".

Tsk. Don't project your own personality on others.

I'm not, Leonard. You see the reaction your antics get from others.

I'll bet you haven't an idea of the answer.

Tsk, tsk. We all know you don't.

I have a very good idea of why you grate on people. It is immediately
apparent.

...in anyone's world, Leonard. It is simply fact. You were wrong. :-)

Nope.

You'll be right when pigs fly or you obtain an amateur radio license,
whichever comes first.

Deal with it.

No problem.

Now, why can't Mr. DX handle opposite opinions to his?

Answer: He never could! :-)

I'm handling them rather well, Mr. No DX, but we're not talking of an
opinion; we're talking about one of your factual errors.

Dave K8MN

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

Len Over 21 wrote:

In article , Dave Heil

writes:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

Really? Did you do lots of contesting and DXing from ADA? Still have
the QSLs?

Tsk. Poor Davie doesn't understand that 24/7 REAL communications
in the military wasn't any "contest" and no "QSLs" were exchanged.

You can understand my confusion when you wrote about losing "interest in
DXing in 'radio sports' and the wallpaper collection of QSLs after
working at station ADA long ago". You made it sound as if you got a
belly full of those things at ADA.

Tsk. I admit to not understanding Davies' total confusion or lack
of understanding of the written word.

Tsk, tsk. If Davie had actually worked in USAF communications
he would have KNOWN that military communications does not
engage in "radiosport contests" nor does it "QSL."

24/7 radio communications on HF (or any other EM spectrum) is
professional-quality work for the military.

So am I to understand that you have
no actual experience in DXing, contesting or QSLing?

Define "DXing." If that means listening to radio broadcasting stations
in other parts of the world, yes, I have and continue to listen to them.

If that means working distant HF stations on a two-way, full duplex
basis over 8000 miles away 24/7, yes, I have experience in that.

If that means "only" having an amateur license and making out like
the world's greatest amateur (windbag), no, definitely no experience
in that.


I fail to see what difference that makes. Why should we, as radio
amateurs, posting in an amateur radio newsgroup, be concerned about what
qualifications are required for other services? Is is your aspiration
to participate in other radio service? Please, go forth and do so.

Tsk. Why does Davie want to abrogate the First Amendment and
deny citizens the right to petition their government for change in
federal regulations?

You DO that in the incessant demands to post in here ONLY if
one has a valid amateur radio license. Tsk, tsk.

Don't you understand that neither FCC commissioners nor FCC
staff are NOT required to have amateur radio licenses...and they
regulate ALL U.S. amateur radio.

Tsk. You should really drop the arrogant "show your papers!"
and elitist demand-by-intimidation-attempt that this newsgroup
"belongs only to already-licensed hams."

YOU don't, nor ever have, regulated or controlled U.S. amateur
radio. You are only a participant. You aren't gang boss, aren't
a government official, aren't even a 'hood chieftan. All you are
is a participant.

What is at stake is a possible restructuring of U.S. regulations
on amateur radio to eliminate or retain the morse code test for an
amateur license having below-30-MHz privileges.

YOUR ranting and raving is confined to nastygramming anyone
who wishes to eliminate that code test. It isn't "civil discourse"
much less discussion. YOUR ranting and raving is about
control over who can post and who cannot. Clue: This newsgroup
is unmoderated and open to anyone with Internet access.


Now, why can't Mr. DX handle opposite opinions to his?

Answer: He never could! :-)

I'm handling them rather well, Mr. No DX, but we're not talking of an
opinion; we're talking about one of your factual errors.

Tsk, tsk. NOT at all well.

Since you mishandle OPINION as "fact," your comments could
be dismissed as being entirely "factual errors." Your opinion on
anything is just your opinion and is not (believe it or not) any
ethical or moral standard that all others MUST follow.

Try, oh TRY to get used to the fact that neither you nor Jimmie
are the Supreme Arbiter of Ham things. No one MUST do as you
say. There is still some freedom left in the world and considerable
independent thought. Your long tenure in hamdom does not give
you any "position" of control over others. Not here, not anywhere.
Try to adjust to that, big Arbiter. Bite me.

(Avery Fineman)(so desperate to get past spam filters that he changes screen names)wrote in message ...
In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:

In an ideal superheterodyne, all the oscillators would generate pure, steady
injection signals. In reality, there is always some imperfections in those
oscillator signals. In modern frequency synthesizers, particularly PLL types,
the imperfection takes the form of noise sidebands on the oscillator signal.

Technically wrong. DDS is more susceptible to spur generation and
phase noise than Fractional-N and Fractional-N is more susceptible
to that than PLLs.

Tsk. You haven't spent much time with a spectrum analyzer...

Sure have. You can nitpick over the minor points but the main thing is
correct: Frequency synthesizers do not produce perfectly clean LO
signals, and that phase noise in the LO causes performance degradation
in HF ham gear.

Trouble is, in the amateur HF environment we often want to listen to a weak
signal surrounded by many strong ones, often only a kHz or two away. Good
crystal and mechanical filters make it possible to separate such signals *if*
they can get to the filter in decent shape.

What happens when the LO signal is phase-noisy is that a close-in-frequency
unwanted signal mixes with the LO *noise*, and produces noise in the receiver
output. With a whole bunch of strong signals, the noise can be so high that
it drowns out the wanted signal. This problem is not due to IMD, blocking or
other
various nonlinearities in the front end - it's due to phase noise alone.

Tsk. Simplistic untruth.

No, it's true. You just don't understand the point.

I should have included a clarifying phrase in the above, but I thought
the average technically knoweldgeable reader would understand the
point anyway.

The clarifying phrase is:

"Even with an ideal receiver front end"

meaning that even if IMD and IP3 aren't causing problems, phase noise
*alone* can cause the apparent noise floor to rise if there are strong
adjacent-channel signals.

Note how, in lab tests, there is sometimes the annotation "noise
limited" when certain tests are made. What do you think that term
means?


Intermodulation distortion and front end noise is enough to cause that.
As part of the IMD, the 3rd Order Intercept point values figure in.

Only if the LO is clean enough to allow it. Note how, in lab tests,
there is sometimes the annotation "noise limited" when certain tests
are made. What do you think that term means?

You can get IMD in stages beyond the mixer. To "prove" that point,
you would have to measure the IMD at various gain settings (manual
or AGC).

Of course. But even in an ideal signal path, phase-noisy LOs can
degrade performance. That's the point. Note how, in lab tests, there
is sometimes the annotation "noise limited" when certain tests are
made. What do you think that term means?

The worst part of that untrue statement is that "all those other things"
were existant before the advent of frequency control by synthesizer.
In ham radios as well as the radios in every other radio service.

Nobody denies that. However, in many sets the phase noise is the
limiting factor. Particularly in real-world situations.

1 Hz is common in modern manufactured amateur equipment. But that's not
really the issue.

Tsk. Why are Jimmie and Kellie trying to make so much of that
resolution? :-)

You brought it up ;-)

R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

Only for a small liferaft. It can be easily carried in one hand. It comes
equipped with a handle on the side, apparently for that purpose. :-)

But, you will try to use my owning an R-70 as all sorts of denigrations.

Like what?

R70s were made 1982-84 (approximately), so the design is at least 23
years old (1981). You frequenctly denigrate others as "behind the
times", yet the R70 is the newest/most modern piece of HF radio
equipment you mention owning. Just another example of "do as Len says,
not as Len does".

Kellie did...and was completely wrong...but then he only "favors" those
equipments that he's owned or has handled.

Just like you, Len ;-)

Have you ever used the receiver he mentions?

How many points did Len get with it in the last CQWW? Or even the last SS or
Field Day?

Irrelevant.

No, completely relevant. One important measure of amateur equipment
quality is how it performs in actual on-air operation.

Had I an HF-privilege ham license, I wouldn't bother with
contesting. I've said that before.

So the answer is: Zero.

There are VHF/UHF contests - including Field Day.

If I wanted sports, I would go to athletics...REAL sport.

Who decides what is "real sport"? You're not the IOC. Or TAC ;-)

[if I wanted "road races," I'd get a sports car as I used to have and
do minor gymkhanas, etc., in REAL road races]

The term "road race" is not limited to motor vehicles. It's
understandable that you don't like sports.

btw, some years back I was there, at NIST in Boulder. Saw the various
standards
and how they keep WWV synchronized. Also visited the WWV/WWVB transmitter
site. Got lots of pictures, too.

Okay, so your resume got rejected.

Nope. Didn't bring one; wasn't looking for a job.

Sorry to hear about it. Glad you
got nice pictures.

Anyone can see nice pictures at the NIST website.

Not the same as being there. It seems you enjoy only second-hand
experiences.

Still living in the past...

Tsk. You are repeating yourself...as you've done many times in the
past.

Not nearly so many times as you, Len. ;-)

Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had
all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all
modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of yarns
and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened.
Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham
had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on the
air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Poor baby. Still with the insults sugar-coated with hypocritical
"civility?"

Are you insulted? Why?

The above story is true. The ham involved (actually an ex-ham; he no
longer shows up in the database) behaved exactly as described. He
probably went on to a career in electronics in some capacity or other.
And as I said, most of his ideas were pretty good - he just never
carried them to completion or even to partial implementation. At least
he held a ham license for a while - you haven't even done that.

You *do* sound just like him, Len. Lots of words and lots of put-downs
and lots of theory. But in terms of actual radios built on your own
time, with your own resources, from your own design....nada. Zip.
Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Not that anyone here knows about in all your
years and petabytes of posting.

I even looked through the online database of ham radio magazine
articles. You had 24 "bylines" in ham radio from 1977 to 1982 (even
though ham radio magazine was in operation a lot longer than that).
Most of them were in the 1977-79 time frame (20 bylines). Not one
"build this radio!" article - lots of commentary, some theory, lots of
basic stuff on digital logic theory.

Last mention was over 22 years ago...

You talk about "independent thought". Designing and building a ham
station with only one's available personal resources requires a lot of
independent thought - and action. It also explodes the myth of
amateurs as simple consumers of manufactured products.

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

To each his own. Why do you denigrate what others find as fun? What is
wrong with live and let live?

Became a professional in the radio-electronics industry, got regular
money for not only designing, but building and testing, following
through in the field, etc., etc., on many projects.

Completely different game. You sound like someone saying the Tour de
France is no big deal because you did the same route in a car in less
time. Or that a marathon is no big deal because you can do 26.22 miles
in less than half the time on a motorcycle.

Point is, for your own personal use, you just go out and buy a radio.
Yet you put down the salesfolk of 20+ years ago for not knowing some
arcane bit of info about the innards of the set.

Does it work any better because you know it has a 3 loop PLL?

Do you find that without honor?

Nope.

Without any worth?

Nope. You got paid, I presume?

Why do you?

Why do you presuppose my answer?

And why do you make fun of others' work and accomplishments, yet
expect honor for your own?

"Do as Len says, not as Len does".

The main point is simple: Hams did not need synthesizers to stay in their
bands and subbands. Nor do they need 1 Hz or even 10 Hz accuracy on HF.

In Jimmie's world, yes. :-)

Why is such accuracy needed by hams, Len?

It must be right across the border from nursieworld. :-)

Tsk. Some "runner." Takes up one phrase and runs and runs and
runs trying to prove another is unworthy in his presence. :-)

Tsk. Those runs could be cured with some kaopectate...

Well, now we know where *your* mind is at, Len...

So there's only one logical thing for me to do: