Topband: My take on ARRL 160

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

It's pretty much demonstrated that there are a lot of people who are
"tone deaf", that is, they simply cannot tell apart two tones of
different frequencies if they are "somewhat" near to one another.
This is an audible approximation of color blind.  Since this does not
produce a problem in day-to-day living, other than singing hymns off
key on Sunday morning, it goes largely unreported.  Given the
oft-reported well-off-frequency calling, it might be a lot more common
than we think.

Back in the day when my hearing was acute and included well beyond the
TV horizontal sweep frequency, I could be singing up front in the
choir on Sunday and hear ALL those in the congregation singing off
key. They stuck out because they were NOT on the shared tone being
sung from the hymnal (this suggest anything?).  There had to be a
dozen, including a favorite dear old gentleman (very popular with the
youth) who also never had the timing quite right, and further sounded
like he was singing with gravel in his mouth.  I'm sure he thought he
was singing on key and on time.  Nobody cared.  "Make a joyful
noise..." and all that.

I think there are a lot of people tone-disadvantaged to some degree or
another.  Their off-frequency is neither careless nor unthoughtful.
Funny how we manage to work them all.....

73, Guy

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 3:27 AM, Gary Smith <Gary at ka1j.com> wrote:
> I'm using a K3 with pretty much all the bells & whistles sans FM & 2
> meters. It's calibrated "perfectly" with WWV and I know it's on
> frequency that's displayed. I was S&P for all but the early daylight
> hours when I called CQ to add a few extra Q's from the other S&Ps out
> there.
>
> When I'm in a CW contest and the band is crowded, I run my digital
> filter at 50 Hz with a 250 Hz crystal filter engaged so I'm pretty
> much dead on someone's transmit frequency and I was amazed how many
> people are listening off their frequency during the contest. They
> were calling CQ and I'd get no reply but still hear them answering
> another station. I'd widen the skirt and hear them work someone say
> 300Hz +/- up or down from their transmit freq. I'd go split & match
> their Rx freq and bang, there was the Q. I'd leave split & go back to
> 50 Hz and most people were Tx & Rx on the same freq but some people,
> quite a few really, definitely aren't listening to their transmit
> freq.
>
> Gary
> KA1J
>
>
>> I cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting on frequency.
>> Make sure you can zero beat and get EXACTLY on frequency of the
>> station you are calling. It is amazing to me how many people cannot
>> seem to do that. I always have callers 200 and even 300 Hz high and
>> low, and then they wonder why I don't hear them. I don't hear them
>> because 200 to 300 Hz away is someone else's run frequency and I am
>> forced to use a 200 Hz filter with very steep skirts. That is how
>> crowded the band is during this contest. It does no good for me to
>> tune for off frequency callers. A distant caller who is S5 but
>> insists on calling under another running station who is S9+20 or
>> more is not likely to be heard. At least not by me!
>>
>> Those are my comments. I'll go back to being silent now.
>>
>> 73,
>> Paul N1BUG
>>
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>
>
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