Topband: Giving "true" signal reports

[Donald Chester]

> What do you give if you listen to the signal on a beverage? Does it
> have a preamp and do you take that into account? A S9 on the transmit
> antenna won't be S9 on a beverage. I think the idea of using a contest
> to find out how you are getting out is fine but you don't, as others
> have already pointed out, need a signal report for that.

> N4XD

The "S" in RST system on CW was never intended to be an S-meter report.  In fact, the RST system and it predecessor were in place long before most hams even had an S-meter on their receiver. The signal report was designed to be (an inherently a subjective) evaluation BY EAR of the signal by the person doing the listening on a receiver.  Pick up an ARRL handbook and review the definitions of each component of the RST.

Under certain conditions, for example with some of the receiving antennas commonly used on 160m, a valid signal report might be 589 or 599, even though it only registers S2 on the meter. An S-meter report can be made more meaningful by reporting the reading with the presence of the signal, and again with the background noise in the absence of the signal.  For example, "you are hitting ten over nine on the meter, and the background noise is S-3".

IMO, one of the weaknesses of the RS(T) system is the nine levels of signal strength.  Whoever originally conceived of the system got it right with five levels of readability, but missed the mark with nine levels of signal strength. It is unrealistic to make a clear distinction between, for example, S6 and S7.  RST is an adaptation of the old QSA-R system, which likewise had superfluous nine levels of signal strength report, represented by "R".  A five-nine report would have been expressed as "Q5, R9", and this terminology was still heard from old timers as late as the 1960s.

Five  levels of readability and five levels of strength would be much more meaningful, and less subjective on the part of the operator, than nine. French-speaking military communication uses a 5 by 5 system for signal reports, and the expression has crept into ordinary (non-radio) language to mean "(I hear you) loud and clear": "cinq sur cinq".

Regarding contests, since the signal report has been declared meaningless, it should be eliminated altogether.  In any case, in the rare occasions that I do participate in a contest, you can expect an honest signal report from me.

Don k4kyv