Topband: Zero Beat

[Eddy Swynar]

Hi All,

Well, for the life of me, I don't understand why anyone would get their shorts in a such knots over the issue of zero beating...

The big advantage of CW over other modes that's been touted for years & years is its reduced bandwidth: if both stations are exactly on the same frequency, the integrity of this narrow bandwidth is intact---if the two stations diverge in frequency, final overall bandwidth is increased by that amount. More bandwidth = less spectrum space = more crowding. Period.

I ran strings of QSOs on one frequency during the garnering of my 460 contacts over the weekend, and yes, I agree, some stations were all over the place within---and outside of---my 250-Hz passband. But so what of it? That's why we have R.I.T.,  and why it's important to take an extra second, or two, to listen---and to tune around---between CQ TEST calls.

Just my $0.02 worth...and I suspect that, despite all of the nay-saying, everyone must have derived some modicum of enjoyment out of the event, otherwise a few of us would be complaining about the poor adhesive quality of the hinges we recently acquired to mount our stamps into our collection books!

'Nuff said.

~73!~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ