[CQ-Contest] The History of automated voice for SSB Contesting

[Cqtestk4xs at aol.com]

Mine was even more crude....a half hour tape of CQs that played until it  
got to the end.  I then had to rewind it and start over.  At least the  
recorder was not in the way of the bedsheet sized dupe sheets.
 
Bill  K4XS
 
 
In a message dated 4/5/2013 4:03:53 P.M. Coordinated Universal Time,  
n4zr at contesting.com writes:

Back in  the 80s sometime, I had a30-second answering machine cassette 
recorder,  followed by a circuit that rectified the audio and amplified 
it to switch  a relay for CW CQing.  Worked fine, but pretty inflexible.  
I'm  glad those days are behind us.

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse  Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at  reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6  or VE7CC DX cluster node.

On 4/5/2013 5:36 AM, Jim Smith wrote:
>  Back in 1960 I rigged up an endless tape loop which I ran through a 
>  Wollensak tape recorder (which, in true ham fashion, I still have).   
> To maintain tape tension I draped the tape loop over the back of a  
> chair and wrapped a few turns of #14 bare wire around it to act as a  
> weight.
>
> Fed the output of the recorder into my 100V  and let the VOX take care 
> of turning the TX on and  off.
>
> Worked FB for calling CQ.  One day after I'd been  CQing into a pretty 
> much dead band for a couple of hours I got a  visit from a Radio 
> Inspector who was wondering what was going  on.  I proudly showed off 
> my Rube Goldberg contraption.  He  clearly didn't like it and told me 
> to stop doing it.  When asked  what part of the Radio Act I was 
> contravening he simply told me again  to stop doing it.  Well, I was 
> pretty young then and lived in  terror of the licensing authority so I 
> guess I stopped doing  it.
>
> 73, Jim    VE7FO
>
> On 3/8/2013  1:23 PM, David Thompson wrote:
>> The discussion on improving voice  recordings for phone got me to
>> thinking about where we have come  and where we might go.
>>
>> Long before digital voice  recorders (DVK's) the astute SSB contester
>> discovered the voice  loop tape for diskette players.  These loops ran
>> from a few  seconds to as long as 16 seconds and were designed as
>> telephone  answering devices.  I used one for years to call CQ and the
>>  last time I used one extensively was in the CQ WW SSB in 1979 to win  
the
>> USA 40 meter Single Band.  I tried to use it in the 1984  ARRL DX SSB on
>> QRP but found that only on 10 meters could I get  answers to be worth the
>> effort.
>>
>> In 1985 I  found Nel-Tech designed by the fellows who designed the 
>> Wang  DVX
>> and I laid out good dollars and brought the Nel-Tech 100 home.  I used
>> it in a few contests and N5KO was living in Atlanta at the  time took it
>> to N4RJ to use for Single Operator in the ARRL SSB  SS.
>> It did appear in a voice monitor that there was some hum so he  stopped
>> using it and lost his voice on the second  day.
>>
>> Next I bought a MFJ 432 and found that you could  cascade a pair for more
>> options.  This worked well for me in  the CQ 160 SSB in 1994 as I won the
>> Zone 5 Plaque.  You had  to watch as it you pressed a button wrong you
>> wound up sending an  extra first letter.  I wonder how many logged
>> KK4JRB.   When they were first introduced they worked fine on what you
>> had  recorded but would not let you send straight through.  Tom,  W8JI
>> came up with a fix to correct and those of us with early MFJ  432's got
>> Rev 1 which corrected the  problem.
>>
>> A number of hams experimented with the text  to speech programs but as
>> several pointed out using a different  voice to send the report caused
>> all sorts of  problems.
>>
>> Jamie Dupree NS3T, who uses his voice as the  Washington reporter for WSB
>> radio decided that he would take the  DVK to the next step and program
>> .wav files so he could run an  entire contest without speaking except for
>> a few  corrections.  He published an article in CQ on the  subject.
>>
>> Digital voice could be the future.  But  so far the steps have been
>> stumbles. Henry Radio sold the 300 but  you had have one at the other end
>> to work correctly.  AOR  tried two models several years ago but again you
>> had to have a  unit at both ends.  D-Star from ICOM so far is just a VHF
>>  device.  The problem is that there needs to be a standard decoding  so
>> the various interfaces can make digital voice be just another  digital
>> mode.  This can help with the QRM on the amateur  bands but you still
>> need a way to have a set of exchanges to  send.
>>
>> We have come along way from flipping a toggle  switch or using PTT for
>> phone contests.  I went straight to  VOX when I went on SSB on Jan 1,
>> 1960 and have not looked  back.
>>
>> 73 Dave  K4JRB
>>
>>
>>
>>
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