I've been a ham since 1962 long before incentive licensing. There were plenty
of terrible signals on the band back then.
CW signals were raspy, chirpy, clicky, and drifty.
AM signals were FMing, had RF in the audio, had audio distortion, and drifted,
SSB signals had terrible opposite side band and carrier suppression, bad audio
and drifted.
Splatter was common.
Harmonics radiation was common, broadcasting on several bands at once.
Spectrum displays are becoming common on high end radios. This may be a boon
since others may tell you when your signal is bad. Of course they'll be wrong
because they don't know the definition of bandwidth but they didn't know it
fifty years ago either.
Jon
On Jun 17, 2013, at 12:14 AM, Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>
>> Guys, I maintain there are a lot less lids and a lot more bad radios then
>> you think!
>
> Any ham who takes for granted what his or her radio is doing, without
> measuring it him- or herself and correcting it as necessary, IS a lid. And
> yes, unfortunately, I know that I have just described 85% of all US hams. I
> would much prefer that those 85% had never been licensed, or had been
> required to learn and demonstrate genuine technical proficiency to become
> licensed (I don't care a whit about whether they know code).
>
> IMO, we should get rid of the whole VE structure and go back to examinations
> by an FCC field engineer at an FCC field office using tests that have not
> been made public. Ideally, including some hands-on operation and
> troubleshooting. Putting testing in the hands of people who have an interest
> in how many new hams there are is the worst possible way to run things.
> Having a limited number of publicly-available test questions is a deplorable
> farce.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>
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