[CQ-Contest] CW pitch

[Dan Violette - KI6X]

Try this link:

http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/199904/date.html#167

Look at the article titles "Choice of CW Narrow filters"

I remembered a lot of talk about this a while back.  I didn;t look at all 
the messages, but April 1999 could be right when I saw this.  I went to 
http://www.contesting.com and put "cw tone" in the List Search section. 
 Many others you could pursue.

73, Dan KI6X

On 14 Nov 2000, Dick Green wrote:

> 
> I was just reading the QST ad for the new MFJ Speech Intelligbility
> Processor. There's some interesting stuff about how different portions of
> the audio spectrum contain different levels of speech energy and contribute
> differently to speech intelligibility. Their point is that 1000Hz-4000Hz
> contains about half the intelligibility, but only a tiny percentage of the
> energy. They claim that there is less ability to detect high frequencies
> with ages (true), and that this leads to loss of inteligibility (I'm not so
> sure that's true at frequencies as low as 4000Hz, but maybe it is.) For the
> moment, I'll ignore what the introduction of products like this says about
> age demographics in the amateur community!
> 
> But the ad set me to wondering whether there are similar intelligibility
> tradeoffs with CW. For several years after I got my license, I tended to
> keep the sidetone pitch in the 700Hz-1000Hz range -- usually the default
> factory setting, which couldn't be changed easily (or at all) on earlier
> rigs. My Elmer happened to have a rig that allowed pitch adjustment, and he
> tended to set it a lot lower -- and complained that mine was set too high.
> When I finally got a modern transceiver, with easily adjustable pitch, I
> started setting it lower and lower. I read somewhere that it's easier to
> zero beat a lower frequency note because small frequency differences are a
> larger percentage of a low note than a high note. Also, it seemed to make
> sense that as I age it should be getting harder to hear the higher notes
> (again, I'm skeptical that oldsters have significant problems at 1000Hz.)
> These days, I tend to use 500Hz-550Hz. But I've noticed during contests
> that when two signals are about equal in intensity, my attention is almost
> always drawn to the one with higher pitch. Also, I find when zero beating
> that I almost always tend to err on the high side. It appears that my mind
> has an idea of what pitch it considers normal for CW and I can't retrain
> myself.
> 
> It seems to me that I should set the pitch at whatever frequency I find
> most intelligible. Even though many contesters sadly lack the skill to zero
> beat, a very high percentage of contacts will be made with those who can do
> it. What's the opinion out there about this subject? Are there any inherent
> advantages to higher or lower frequencies? Are there any good ways, other
> than random testing, to determine the best pitch for optimum
> intelligibility?
> 
> 73, Dick WC1M
> 
> 
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-- Dan Violette    Amateur Radio: KI6X   E-mail: danki6x at pacbell.net --


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