The thing that is missing in SSB is the carrier -- it was suppressed. And
unlike AM only one side band is transmitted -- either the upper sideband
(USB) or the lower sideband (LSB).

Only one sideband is needed to transmit intelligence.


Thus Single SideBand Suppressed carrier is the whole name for SSB
transmissions.

At the receiver side you reinsert a carrier (BFO) which then allows
demodulation.

As you tune the receiver, the BFO is inserted at different points until it
sound natural.

A little practice and you can tune right in on it. Hams do it all the time.

SSB modulation is nicely illustrated at URL:
http://www.williamson-labs.com/480_ssb.htm

It explains the big advantages of using SSB along with pictorials

--
Caveat Lector



"Scott A." wrote in message
...
starman wrote in :

Due to the nature (physics) of how SSB works it's difficult to make
the audio sound like the original. One problem is the original pitch
range is missing from an SSB signal and there's no way to know exactly
what it was. For example, I have heard Art Bell, the AM radio talk
show host, operating on the ham' bands in SSB. It sounds like Art but
it's not the same as hearing him on an AM broadcast station. It does
help if there is musical content to an SSB signal which can act as a
reference for adjusting the pitch correctly. Since SSB is mostly used
for voice only, it doesn't really matter if the pitch is not exactly
like the original.


Thanks for the info. I was, after some practice, able to get the station
to sound pretty good. It's kinda weird how you can change the pitch of
the
voice or music by changing the tuning. All this time I was convinced that
the ssb on my radio didn't work right, especially since it's one of the
selling points for this model. Guess I'm still a little wet behind the
ears.