Well, since everyone is picking at others' terminology, I can probably pinpoint when "radio" happened ... it's the KWM-2's "fault." I'm not older than dirt but I can remember when dirt was young, and in the OD's [Olden Days], one had a "station receiver" and one or more transmitters. I had 3 ARC-5's on 80, 40, and 20 CW. Receivers received -- transmitters transmitted, and they generally did not look anything like each other. Receivers were predominantly commercial, transmitters often not. While there were a few "transceivers" around on VHF [Gonset Communicator comes to mind], they were really just a tunable receiver and a rock-bound transmitter in one box with a handle. In land mobile equipment, both were rock-bound.
Single Sideband did not arrive on the HF scene to unmitigated joy and unquestioned acceptance, as some of my equally aged friends will remember. There were lots of reasons for this, some valid, some not so much, but a big valid one was that SSB sort of required that you transmit on the same frequency that your QSO buddy was on. Depending on how you were making your SSB RF and receiving his, this was not always an easy thing to bring off. Although it had a couple of predecessors, the KWM-2 was a game changer since, without the external VFO, you transmitted exactly where you were receiving, and on the same sideband, guaranteed. Don't laugh, figuring out which sideband someone was on on a Hallicrafters SX-28 was not child's play until you got the hang of it. This was the birth of the word "transceiver" in common ham usage. Transmitters sort of faded from the scene and, unless you're Rob, K6RB who has been running his Globe King 500 on CW recently [which sounds very good :-)], they're pretty hard to find these days. Transceiver slowly gave way to "radio" which is 6 letters shorter. "Radio" can mean a specific device pertaining to radio [e.g. my K3 is a radio, as is David's Philco] and it can also mean a form of communications. It can be a noun, or an adjective [the President gives a "Weekly Radio Address," I've never found out on which station, but he apparently does]. The kids called the "closet" I used to have for a shack "The Radio Room." Radio Shack sells a few radios, and a lot of other stuff. Whether the smartypants phone in my pocket is a "radio" or not is still up for grabs, but strangely, "wireless" which is the original "radio" is now ubiquitous again. My K3, K2, KX1, FT-847, and IC-2800H in the truck, are "radios" to me. My KPA500 is a solid-state linear amplifier, and my P3 is the coolest little thing with a screen in the room. I don't think the rise of "radio" instead of transceiver had anything to do with Citizens Band, although my teen friends and I populated 11 meters when it was still a ham band since we could do just about anything there as long as we stayed in-band. And while we're at it, we were RV camping with some friends a few years ago [ours was rented], and one of them, a ham, asked me where the little notebook I kept was. I said, "It's on the rig" meaning my K2 on the picnic table. He went inside our RV [no radio] looking for it. So far as I can tell, there are no "pure" words in the English language. As Lewis Carroll wrote, "They each mean exactly what we want them to mean." 73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2012 Cal QSO Party 6-7 Oct 2012 - www.cqp.org On 4/11/2012 8:17 AM, David Pratt wrote: > Another thing that make me cringe is the use of 'radio' to mean a > transceiver or rig. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
