[TenTec] Simple Stuff

[Robert & Linda McGraw K4TAX]

----- Original Message -----
From: <al_lorona@agilent.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 4:21 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Simple Stuff


>
> Hi, Everybody,
>
> The recent (ongoing) threads on 1/ keying waveshapes and 2/ speech
> compression are really encouraging to me for this reason: what might have
> been regarded as old topics or issues that have already been decided are
> actually very much undecided and open to questioning.
>
> All I ever hear is how CW is a dead mode, too old and too boring to be of
> any use, yet... the issue of the perfect keying waveform is still under
> debate. That is cool! Doesn't that mean that there's life in the old mode
> yet, and areas of discovery still to be made? Add to this the latest
product
> review in QST... if I didn't know that was supposed to be CW, I would have
> thought that it's some new type of pulse modulation. It's that poor. Yes,
> Virginia, over one-hundred years after the invention of CW, we still can't
> do it right.
>
As to CW being a dead mode, my take on the subject is that those that say
it's dead are most likely those that died trying to operate SSB.  If they
were alive and explored the CW bands they would find that it's alive and
well.


> As for speech compression, this is a hot topic right now, with all the
> renewed interest in "hi-fi" SSB (for lack of a better term). Imagine:
> innovation in a mode that is over fifty (50) years old! And we were ready
to
> write SSB off as *another* one of those antiquated, obsolete modes. Gotta
> make room for digital voice and MFSK-15,000,000, you know.

Gee, I just discovered a new breed and a new mode called AM.  Actually it's
not new to me.  I operated AM when I got my General in 1960.  To that end
today, I run a full bandwidth AM rig...........formerly a broadcast
transmitter with limited audio bandwidth to be legal.

>
> It's the simple stuff that affords lots of experimentation and innovation
in
> amateur radio, I'm convinced, especially for the common Joe like me, and
not
> the esoteric state-of-the-art that I don't understand anyway.

That's why I've been a ham since 1958........errr,  if my mind is clear
that's 44 years.
>
> Al,  W6LX
>
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