+++++++++++++++++++ Reply-To: From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" To: Subject: RE: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 18:20:50 -0700 John - KC4KGU wrote: ... If you just enjoy CW, that's one thing but, it's kinda hard to screw up pulsing a carrier.... -------------------------------- Then why was it necessary to simplify the CW test so much over the years in order for people to be able to pass it? And once learned... well... I guess you haven't had the practice trying to copy some of the "fists" that I have... Bless every one of them though for putting in the effort that learn it takes to send well -even with the help of a keyer. You are right about there being more variables in SSB transmission - starting with a 20 dB or more disadvantage in signal to noise ratio compared to CW. And I'll add to that in support of your comment that I've heard a few AWFUL sounding K2's out there on SSB. In general, the BFO is not set right, producing a very bassy, muddy audio or a very tinny "weak" audio. Figuring out how to properly adjust things is part of the challenge and the fun of building your own rig. And it can't be ignored any more than learning CW can be ignored if you want to use a key. I strongly recommend to any op running SSB to listen to yourself on an auxiliary receiver at the first opportunity and record your voice to see if you really like what you hear. Shoot, I've got probably a whole day invested in "tweaking" the BFO settings and microphone for the best audio and the only SSB QSO's I've had were with other K2 owners while I was doing the tweaking! Ron AC7AC K2 # 1289 +++++++++++++++++++ Reply-To: From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" To: Subject: RE: RE: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 19:48:54 -0700 Kevin, KD5ONS wrote Don't knock a keyer :) It has helped me shape characters with my straight key immensely. Just by hearing what 'good' code sounds like by sending to myself for many, many hours, making the transition to a straight key was fairly painless. I found only 20 or 30 hours worth of work got me to the point where I don't notice much difference between sending with one or the other. ------------------- I'd never do any such thing, Kevin. My apologies for sounding "grumpy" I guess. My Scotia Paddles may not get much use these days, but I've 20 years of experience with an Iambic keyer. And with a keyboard -- but that was hooked to the noisiest gawdawful bucket of bolts that you ever heard. We called 'em a "Model 10 Teletypewriter" that demanded that you synchronize your keystrokes with the machinery or those keys were going to buck and refuse to send the characters you wanted. That was during my stint as a MARS operator in the US Army in the 50's and in the RACES circuit when I got out. My age is showing through the mask of cyberspace again I see... I was just listening on 40 CW to a couple of ops flying along at about 50 WPM - obviously on keyboards a bit more modern than the ol' RTTY and sending code so clean that even I could lean back and copy it. It's fun doing that. And "reading the mail" all over the bands and modes. CW, SSB, PSK, RTTY, you name it. It's a great hobby. Let's all HELP each other get the most fun out of it! Ron AC7AC K2 # 1289 +++++++++++++++++++ Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 23:37:23 -0500 From: "George, W5YR" Organization: AT&T WorldNet Service To: Larry East Cc: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! I don't know where the 20 dB advantage figure for CW over SSB comes from, but both Larry and I were around during the early days of the AM/SSB wars. A number of analysis papers were published in all the ham literature, but as I recall the consensus was that sideband offered an overall 9 dB over DSB AM in terms of S/N and some intangibles like power consumption, final amplifier efficiency, etc. I can see where CW would improve over SSB considering the use of, say, a 300 Hz bandwidth rather than 3000 Hz. That should be good for a factor of 10 or 10dB in S/N improvement, working on the back of an old envelope. So I would tend to look upon CW as being probably 9-12 dB superior to SSB in S/N, depending upon the bandwidths involved, but I don't think that I could give it 20 dB. Larry, what do you recall about all this? What am I forgetting about? 73/72, George Amateur Radio W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas In the 57th year and it just keeps getting better! Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe K2 #489 Icom IC-765 #2349 Icom IC-756 PRO #2121 Larry East wrote: > > At 08:51 PM 10/8/02 -0400, kc4kgu at ENTERZONE.NET wrote: > > >Larry, that's no attitude to have. If you just enjoy CW, that's one thing > >but, it's kinda hard to screw up pulsing a carrier. There are a lot of > >variables involved with SSB. Especially if it isn't a mode that you > >operate much with on your rig, you may not have everything quite right and > >the folks may not have heard you very well. > > Hogwash! I can have any attitude that I want at my age! :-) > > The biggest "variable" is that many SSB ops don't think any signal below S9 > is "good copy". I have been a ham now for 51 years and I have worked plenty > of QRP DX -- most on CW but a bunch also on SSB. I have worked DX stations > on both SSB and CW running 100W to 1KW that were rather week yet they were > willing and able to hear my 5W. I've called stations state-side that were > over S9 with no response. Maybe they had high noise levels, poor receivers, > were listening on the wrong VFO or whatever -- but that seems to happen > much more often on SSB than on CW. > > Just to reinforce (but not necessarily prove...) my point, a few minutes > ago I tuned my K2 down to the lower part of 17M, heard a JK1 finish a QSO, > gave him a call and he came right back to me. He was 559 and gave me 529 -- > and he copied my name, QTH and rig with no repeats. (Granted, the "1" call > helps get the attention of Pacific Rim stations! :-) > > Someone claimed that CW has a 20dB advantage in S/N over SSB -- Fooie! The > advantage is more in the range 6-9dB, but highly dependent on the receiver > bandwidth. > > 72/73 > Larry W1HUE/7 > > PS - I am also "technically competent" as demonstrated by my publications > in various ham mags (mostly QRP) over the years. And I own more test > equipment than just a RatShack DVM... ++++++++++++++++++ Reply-To: From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" To: "'George, W5YR'" Cc: Subject: RE: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 23:31:24 -0700 George, W5YR wrote: I don't know where the 20 dB advantage figure for CW over SSB comes from, but both Larry and I were around during the early days of the AM/SSB wars. A number of analysis papers were published in all the ham literature, but as I recall the consensus was that sideband offered an overall 9 dB over DSB AM in terms of S/N and some intangibles like power consumption, final amplifier efficiency, etc.... -------------------------- Ha! I had forgotten about the equations that included the final amplifier efficiency (or supposed efficiency) back when virtually no Ham had much of an idea how much power the rig put OUT, but only how much power the final amplifiers CONSUMED! Your age is showing . You are perfectly right, George. The advantage of one mode over another is basically a difference in bandwidths, assuming no interference. What is a workable bandwidth for any mode is largely up to the operator's tastes. Some ops hate the sound of SSB with less than 3 kHz of audio bandwidth. Others like 2 kHz. Some ops run their CW rigs at 200 Hz or so bandwidth. Others (including me) tend to use 1 or ever 1.5 kHz unless QRM forces me to narrow down the bandwidth. Another variable with voice vs. CW is the fact that you must hear MORE of the SSB to make sense of what is being said. With CW, you can QRS and make out what is going on with very weak signals. There is a higher degree of redundancy in the CW signal that allows more data to be lost before the meaning is lost than with a voice. While it is theoretically possible to hold a SSB QSO in which the stations spell every word phonetically and repeat them, I suspect that it's a lot more common for a CW operator to QSZ automatically when conditions are bad. So the dB "advantage" of one mode over another includes a lot of subjective operator choices. If one wants an "absolute" statement that holds up under any conditions, it is that CW can be read more easily by a skilled operator than SSB under weak signal conditions. Beyond that it's a debate! That said, I am not suggesting that it isn't possible to hold an SSB QSO spanning the earth with a few milliwatts of RF. I am suggesting that it will happen more often with a narrower-bandwidth mode like CW. Nothing more. Ron AC7AC K2 # 1289 +++++++++++++++++ From: bejones at hursley.ibm.com To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 09:53:09 +0100 Subject: RE: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! > During the California QSO contest I worked 22 states and a few provinces all > with less than 10w on SSB. I was trying for all states but I got into the > game late. I only missed one try on 40m.a During WAS over the last couple of years I worked in excess of 30 states each year (35 in 2001, don't have this year's log here). All 10W SSB on a 102' doublet at 30'. QRP SSB works very well in contests when the other guy will make the effort for the extra point. It is much harder to have casual QSOs though, as Larry points out some folks often don't want to be bothered with much less than 59 copy. One of the better QSOs I had was with a VK7GK in Tasmania who switched of his linear to join me at 10W and we had a 44 copy QSO for about 20 mins before I had to run. Nice to exceed 1000miles/watt with a casual chat QSO. One of these days I use the K2 for CW :-) Brian G0UKB K2 #1115 ++++++++++++++ From: "Dan Barker" To: "Elecraft" Subject: FW: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 07:16:53 -0400 It wasn't my K2, and it wasn't on purpose (I had the drive all the way down for tuneup, and just forgot when I heard a JA in Atlanta), but I once got a 439 report from over 10K Miles on 750 mW! I was wondering why the poor report (he was pretty solid) so after the QSO I saw the problem, and measured my output before turning up the wick. When Mother Nature wants you to comminicate, you communicate. When she doesn't, 10KW won't help. Dan / WG4S / K2 #2456 BTW: That was CW. ++++++++++++++++ From: N2EY at aol.com Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 07:47:45 EDT Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! To: rondec at easystreet.com, w5yr at att.net Cc: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net In a message dated 10/9/02 2:50:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, rondec at easystreet.com writes: > The advantage of one mode over another > is basically a difference in bandwidths, assuming no interference. That's most of the difference. If we take SSB as needing 2500 Hz and CW as needing 250 Hz, a lot of the improvement is obvious (less N means better S/N) What's not so obvious is the fact that in many cases CW needs a lower S/N to be readable. All you need to determine is whether the tone is there or not. There are times when you can hear a voice signal, but can't make out what is being said. Also, CW has the advantage of being "fully voiced". IOW, the ratio of peak to average power is much higher. None of this means SSB or even AM is useless for QRP work. How many times have we gotten 599 plus reports for QRP CW? Switching to SSB under those conditions would have yielded reports of 579 or better. 73 de Jim, N2EY ++++++++++++++++ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 09:23:14 -0500 From: "George, W5YR" Organization: AT&T WorldNet Service To: Dan Barker Cc: Elecraft Subject: Re: FW: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Not always, Dan! <:} I once attended a ham club meeting in which a Collins Radio engineer used their enormous LPA at 100 ft with about 50 KW behind it to work every SAC ground facility in the world on a frequency near 10 meters. That was at the bottom of a sunspot cycle and about 9 pm local time when the band was totally shut down. 73/72, George Amateur Radio W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas In the 57th year and it just keeps getting better! Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe K2 #489 Icom IC-765 #2349 Icom IC-756 PRO #2121 Dan Barker wrote: > When Mother Nature wants you to comminicate, you communicate. When she > doesn't, 10KW won't help. ++++++++++++++ From: "Ferguson, Kevin" To: "'elecraft at mailman.qth.net'" Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 08:38:38 -0600 Subject: [Elecraft] Re: SSB - Fooie! The bandwidth considerations are correct, but there is another, easy to understand, contributing factor: The PEP to average power ratio for SSB is somewhere around 10 dB. Yes, compression can lower that number, by increasing the average value. Including more bandwidth (thinking 80 M hifi types here) can dramatically raise the ratio by increasing the peaks. (multiple non-harmonicly related frequencys will periodically add constructivly, producing higher peaks think two-tone test with 10 tones instead!) While keyed the peak to average ratio for CW is close to 0 dB. (Exactly zero only if you permit nasty clicks) If only the peaks are loud enough to distinguish from the noise, you can't understand voice, but you can copy CW. To understand voice, the average needs to be a bit above the noise so that most of the softer voice sounds also come through. (the receiving brain can fill in some gaps if they are small enough) Enter narrow bandwidth and compression, the SSB DXer's friends. Anyway, between the bandwith considerations and the peak-average differences, I think a 20 dB advantage for CW using the _same_ PA IS a reasonable estimate. Compression might shave 3-4 dB off that number. The only way I could get down to 9 dB were if I were only considering the S-meter reading at the recieving end...and then I would say, that yes you probably do need to see the S meter peaking 1-1/2 S units or so above background for solid SSB copy, while it needn't move to copy CW. But keep in mind that this background noise is already around 10 dB higher due to the increased reciever bandwidth. ++++++++++++++ Reply-To: From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" To: Subject: RE: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 08:38:26 -0700 Brian G0UKB wrote QRP SSB works very well in contests when the other guy will make the effort for the extra point. It is much harder to have casual QSOs though, as Larry points out some folks often don't want to be bothered with much less than 59 copy. ------------------------ Maybe the K2 and the other QRP SSB rigs will change that. I recall in decades past that a LOT of CW ops scoffed at anyone who didn't have an S-9 signal. Oh, most ops tolerated a low powered signal at least long enough to swap signal reports - I think that we were considered "refugees" from the Novice bands who hadn't bought a "real rig" yet in their opinion. But it was often hard to have a rag chew with some of those ops. I don't think that is quite so true to day. The reason, I suspect, is the popularity of QRP and the sheer number of QRP rigs on the bands. I'm using QRP in it's generic meaning of "low power" and including all of us running 10 or 20 watts with various rigs as well as the QRP ARCI enthusiasts. At the same time there haven't been all that many QRP rigs readily available to the bulk of the SSB ops - at least not since the 20A and a few other 10 and 20 watt PEP rigs disappeared from the market in the early 1960's. Back then what "sold" the "Donald Duck modulation" to the mainstream was the fact that 10 or 20 watts PEP got out just as well as the bulk of the 50 to 150 watt (d-c input) AM stations on the air. And that was what the vast majority of the "phone operators" were running in those days. But since the advent of the 'factory built' 100 watt output SSB rigs, low powered SSB has been a bit like AM on the phone bands from what I understand. A few dedicated enthusiasts but not much more. Now when more and more QRO ops hear QRP ops having nice rag chews on SSB, perhaps they'll begin to think a little differently about the need for a "20 over 9" signal to have a nice QSO. Ron AC7AC K2 # 1289 +++++++++++++++ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 12:03:09 -0400 From: "Mark J. Dulcey" To: rondec at easystreet.com Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! Ron D'Eau Claire wrote: > > But since the advent of the 'factory built' 100 watt output SSB rigs, > low powered SSB has been a bit like AM on the phone bands from what I > understand. A few dedicated enthusiasts but not much more. The HFPack group counts as more than "a few" dedicated enthusiasts; the group membership currently stands at 2859. One way to look for low-power SSB QSOs is to visit 17 meters and go looking for those folks. ++++++++++++++++++ To: johnclif at ix.netcom.com, elecraft at mailman.qth.net Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 08:54:43 -0700 Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB Distances... From: k6se at juno.com John, KD7KGX wrote: "My best 'miles per watt' was talking from Seattle to the Yukon Territory on 100mW (the K2 was turned down as far as it would go) and CW... about 600> miles according to my HamCall CD, or 6,000 miles/watt." ========== The other morning W0AH had 555-mile and 590-mile QSOs on 160-meter CW while running about 3/4 mw ERP -- both over 600,000 miles per watt! 73, de Earl, K6SE +++++++++++++++++ To: rondec at easystreet.com, w5yr at att.net, Elecraft at mailman.qth.net Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 09:04:09 -0700 Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB - Fooie! From: k6se at juno.com Ron, AC7AC "Another variable with voice vs. CW is the fact that you must hear MORE of the SSB to make sense of what is being said.' ========== I think it is fair to allow 6 dB advantage to CW for the reason Ron gives -- A CW signal just barely out of the noise can be 100% copy, while an SSB signal at the same strength will be 0% copy. That 6 dB, coupled with the S/N improvement that commonly-used 250 Hz xtal filters offer clearly makes CW the big winner over SSB for copying weak signals. I don't know how this thread started, but what does the 9 dB advantage that SSB has over AM have to do with CW ? 73, de Earl, K6SE +++++++++++++++++++