[SCCC] Looking For Write Ups, Comments, Observations AM to, SSB

[k6xt]

Hi Dennis

I was there as a young 18 yr old salesman working for a ham radio 
distributor in Minneapolis. This FT8/digi transition bears no technical 
resemblance whatsoever to that currently underway in the WSJT millenium. 
SSB was just another analog way to yak. Much of the angst was about 
unstable BFO's (for the youngsters beat frequency oscillator, still 
around but unrecognized, in the day had its own knob!) and Donald Duck. 
True that FT8 is "just another digital mode ho hum" but wait. It does 
that marvelous 20+dB thing that has some proponents thinking we can work 
the world by dropping tx power 20dB despite the undeniable physical fact 
that's an erroneous conclusion.

The real bang for the buck here has not to do with radio at all. Its the 
software. During the 50's SSB revolution precious few idiot savants had 
any idea what "software" is and fewer cared. Without a PC and software 
neither of which existed in the 50's to the general public there isn't 
any FT8.

There is no technical comparison. As to revolutions, yes FT8 is.

73 Art K6XT~~
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.
ARRL LM, CW OPS, GMCC, MHDXA, NAQCC, NCDXF, SDDXC, CDXC
ARRL TA

On 18/12/07 10:00 AM, sccc-request at contesting.com wrote:
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>     1. Looking For Write Ups, Comments, Observations AM to SSB
>        (Dennis Younker NE6I)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2018 16:28:59 -0800
> From: "Dennis Younker NE6I" <NE6I at cox.net>
> To: <sccc at contesting.com>
> Subject: [SCCC] Looking For Write Ups, Comments, Observations AM to
> 	SSB
> Message-ID: <001501d48dc3$d92f93a0$8b8ebae0$@cox.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi all,
>
>   
>
> The current conversation taking place in Amateur Radio, well, one of them
> anyway, is about FT8. Is it fun? Boring? Machine to machine? Going to kill
> amateur radio, going to take it over?
>
>   
>
> All of that said, it has made me wonder if this is similar to the AM to SSB
> transition/migration many years ago. I missed that one. SSB was well
> entrenched when I was first licensed back in 1972. I'd like to hear from
> those of you that WERE there for that transition. What were the comments
> from the hams at large? What were the predictions? What did you think about
> it? How did it impact contesting back then? Please reply to me privately.
> I'd like to engage you in some conversation via email and compose an article
> for the SCCC web page. It will be a joint effort with all write ups from all
> of you that participate. If you'd like to be anonymous in the article,
> that's okay too. Just let me know.
>
>   
>
> I'm looking forward to this. We may do one later on rigs of the past. Boat
> anchors to Collins to Heathkit to Drake to Signal Ones to solid state to
> modern rigs that we can barely repair ourselves. That too would be a fun
> topic but let's start with AM to SSB.
>
>   
>
> I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
>
>   
>
> --Dennis NE6I
>
>
>
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> End of SCCC Digest, Vol 192, Issue 9
> ************************************
>