Indeed, SSB was not universally accepted at first. In fact, it was met with much derision from the AM crowd. Called "silly sideband" by some, and others who said that it sounded like a bunch of ducks quaking or someone with a severe nasal problem.
Not only did one have to be exactly on the other station's frequency, but also on the correct sideband: LSB for 40m and down and USB for 20m and up. (There were no 12m, 17m or 30m allocations at the time, circa 1965.) Is there one of us from that era who wasn't embarrassed by the other operator telling us that we were on the wrong sideband? Not only did we have to select the appropriate sideband with a switch, we actually had to tune the transmitter if we changed bands or frequencies by more than about 25 kHz (kilocycles back then). This was at some risk to the finals in the transmitter, if not done quickly and carefully. Then there was the problem with either operator's receiver or transmitter drifting. There were no TCXOs back then, so it was somewhat standard practice to let the gear warm up for about 30 minutes before getting serious with a QSO. Yes, no ATUs back then, either. If you had an amplifier or antenna tuner inline with the transmitter, they had to be tuned for resonance as well. It must cause some of the newer hams to wonder how we ever made a contact in the good old days. But we did! I think it gave us a better perspective on what was inside the box, and what we were accomplishing when tuning. We've come a long way! It's great to see the resurgence in operating AM, as well as the increased interest in CW. In fact, I added the AM filter to my K3 order. 73 de Jim - AD6CW On 4/11/2012 4:54 PM, Fred Jensen wrote: > 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. > > > 73, > > Fred K6DGW > - Northern California Contest Club > - CU in the 2012 Cal QSO Party 6-7 Oct 2012 > - www.cqp.org > > ______________________________________________________________ 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
