These guys have it right, from what I saw. In the US maritime service the FCC kept increasing the rules for stability, signal purity, keying, etc., but the rules applied to when the equipment was manufactured, so an old console that drifted and yooped was legal as long as it was still in service.
Ship owners never changed out something that worked, so as long as the radio console was repairable (and there wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed) they kept the same old console. On an old vessel in the early 1990's I found an ancient black RCA console. If you've not seen a shipboard radio console, there are pictures of one aboard a restored WWII cargo ship here: http://www.arrl.org/news/features/1999/0216/2/?nc=1 The vessel I was called to work on had been taken out of the "mothball fleet" to haul supplies to the Persian Gulf during Gulf War I and my eye was drawn to a little panel on the console marked "Crystal Detector" with space for a galena crystal and cat's whisker! You see, all radio consoles had both a main and a backup receiver as well as main and backup transmitters. At one time that crystal set was the "backup receiver". The crystal was long gone. The console had been "upgraded" to a regenerative receiver for use in case the main superhetrodyne receiver broke down in an emergency, but the panel to mount the crystal was still there. That's why MCW was required for all emergency communications: crystal sets don't have BFO's <G>. Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Fred Jensen Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 7:54 PM To: Elecraft Reflector Subject: Re: [Elecraft] REAL CW!! Mike Short wrote: > So why did they all sound so different? Was is operator preference or > equipment limitations that determined the tone? > > Mike > AI4NS > (Just a young pup. Only 8 years of ham radio with 25 years in between > licenses...) Hi there Young Pup, Equipment was different then, and really so aboard ship. Chirp and rough AC notes were common when I worked coastal marine in 57 [HS senior]. Shipboard power was often not the most stable you'd likely find today, radios tended to be old ... the recording was from the 70's, some of that equipment may have been pre-WW2 ... and operating condx weren't always all that great. The maritime service tended to sail their fleets until they rusted to the bottom. I had a hard time copying some of that and 50 years ago as a 16yr old, it would have been a slam dunk. We're used to incredibly stable receivers and transmitters, pure notes, perfect spacing of CW [well...maybe not on SKN :-) ]. Most then used bugs, but there were a number of straight keys as well, you can spot them in the audio clip. Many of the bugs were hard to slow down. Vibroplex's were notorious. Being a teen and very poor, my bug was a J-36 I'd found at Sam's Surplus Sales on Pico St in downtown Los Angeles. It was sort of proletarian-looking [OK, very proletarian], not shiny like those of my crew mates, but it could produce civilized dot speeds without added and ugly weights. The recording at Ron's first link, except for call signs, sounds like what I heard on 600m in the mid-20th century. Thanks for coming back to the hobby. We need you Mike. 73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2007 CQP Oct 6-7 - www.cqp.org _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
