Since we're venting...
-Most all modern rigs, at least all the "high end" ones, have a MONITOR
function that allows you to hear what you sound like, on the air. It's not
just tapped into the audio modulation channel, in most decent rigs the MONI
is a sampling of the RF envelope post modulation, and demodulated by product
detection. It works.
-Besides using that obvious feature, I have a golden rule: When using a
1500W (or more likely 2500W full-scale) Wattmeter in line, the meter
indication between words should fall to "zero." Any indication whatever is
an absolute sign of having nearly zero signal-to-noise ratio on the
transmitted signal, and what will sound like maybe 3dB of carrier
suppression.
-And why, oh why, do DX stations who can barely speak English use phonetics
they cannot pronounce? It's really funny. The French stations who use
"Florida," a word that is nearly impossible to pronounce for them, instead
of "France," which ought to be an easy one.
-And on and on it goes...
WB2WIK/6
"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem." --
Henry Kissinger
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike [SMTP:W4EF@dellroy.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 12:54 PM
> To: amps@contesting.com; John T. M. Lyles
> Subject: Re: [Amps] 10 Meters
>
> Hi John,
>
> I operated the contest two weekends ago. I had a two
> radio setup so I actually listened to my own signal a few
> times. I was concerned because my monitor output sounded
> kind of crappy on 10 meters (like I had RF in my audio), but
> when I listened to the end-to-end over the air signal it sounded
> pretty good. Anyone with a single-op two-radio setup (SO2R),
> which is very common in contesting these days, should be able
> to do this sort of test without even slowing down. Likewise
> multiops typically have at least one spare rig for multiplier
> spotting, so they too should be able to spot check their TX
> quality. Nevertheless, I heard a lot of garbage out there. Many
> signals were so overprocessed that they actually reduced
> intelligibility.
>
> From what I understand, the ARRL OO's were out in force
> reminding people of where the band edges are located.
> Perhaps they could also start serving notice on those people
> with 80 grit audio.
>
> 73 de Mike, W4EF.....................
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John T. M. Lyles" <jtml@lanl.gov>
> To: <amps@contesting.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:51 AM
> Subject: [Amps] 10 Meters
>
>
> > I was mobile QRP (5 watts) this past weekend, while crossing USA in
> > automobile. 10 meters was hot, lotta DX.
> > I was was surprised by a number of sounding stations. A lot of high
> > powered stations in Europe, Asia and Carribean were overdriven
> > (obviously amplified) and had their audio so compressed and
> > overloaded that it was painful to hear. I suppose that they believe
> > that they have what it takes to crack through the QRM. It was hard
> > to hear stateside transmissions, but I noted that they also tended to
> > the same extreme. There WERE some nice sounding transmissions, mostly
> > casual QSOs between hams that didn't last only 10 seconds (just long
> > enough for a 'five by nine' report). I don't mean to poo poo contests
> > and DX chasing, but the sound of some is less than desirable.
> >
> > There was also a lot of tuner-uppers (carriers, high speed dits, and
> > whistles and hellos) on the band, who don't know to use a dummy load
> > and completely obliterate someones QSO. Since I had little to compete
> > with, I stayed away from pileups, have to say that I mostly turned
> > off the radio in disgust, with the sheer quantity of LIDs who stomp
> > on others. But then again, only the worse and loudest were noteworthy
> > to be mentioned here, and there were plenty of nice sounding stations
> > as well. Since this is the contesting list, I am 'venting' here. No
> > one on this list would sound like that, right?
> >
> > --
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> > Amps@contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
> >
>
>
>
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