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CW?
What the heck is CW? We know what
a ham means by CW, it is "International Morse," Morse Code. (NOT
Country and Western music!) Why do we call Morse Code CW? The
first Amateur Radio Operator to span the Atlantic Ocean was Guglielmo Marconi.
He sent the letter S, three times (on December 12, 1901, it was received
at St. Johns Newfoundland.) Did he use CW? NO! He used
the `now dead' way of doing things, SPARK. Most of our current hams
have never experienced or heard SPARK. Just as I haven't. It
was so popular that the "diehards" that were operating SPARK refused to
abandon it when it was outlawed. Why? Most "Modern" spark transmitters
used a power supply (kinda on the high voltage side), a mechanical interrupter
(motor or vibrator driven, for a musical note), and a resonant circuit
tuned (with the antenna) to the transmit frequency. The key connected
the power source only when the key was down. It was noisy, smelly
(mostly from ozone from ionized air at the interrupter arc,) and I'm sure
the table - the entire house sometimes, vibrated from the motor driven
interrupters. Why were the `diehards' so reluctant to give up SPARK?
A lot of HAMS were running 500 to 1,500 watts, and QSOing from New York
to Chicago, while CW transmitters weren't putting out as much as 100 watts.
Most operated in the 2 - 30 watt range in fact. And at such a high
frequency, - 150 meters (OUCH!) and such, nothing worked up there! (150
meters is about 1.5 Mega-cycles per second!) The U.S. Navy, a fledgling
commercial operation (radio stations) pushed HAMS up to where the equipment
barely worked, at least the home made tubes and such. Commercial
parts makers (with HAMs working for them, I'm sure) made tubes smaller,
higher powered and higher frequencies, (is that a word?) the advancements
haven't stopped! So there was spark and CW, now there is only CW!
Why did the F.C.C. (or whoever?) outlaw SPARK? It occupied 100 times
the spectrum of CW and the frequency control was crude. If you are
into this nostalgia stuff (like me!) you must reads: 200 METERS AND DOWN
(The Story of Amateur Radio) by Clinton B. Desoto and ARRL THE FIRST 50
YEARS, (a reprint of Historical Articles from the 1964 issues of QST) (both
are American Radio Relay League publications) and; If you ever get
to the Hartford, Connecticut area, drive over a few hills and visit our
shrine to the old days of HAM radio, the ARRL Museum in the lobby of the
ARRL on Main street in Newington, Connecticut (I did once.)
Ron KA4INM [email protected]