[AMRadio] Roundtables, AM Window

[Donald Chester]

From: "Bernie  Doran" <qedconsultants at embarqmail.com>
<<<<The other thing that bothers me a bunch is when a SSB station comes
back, and does not know I am on A.M.  I tell them that I am on A.M. and that
it takes a bit of time for all the relays and my old hands to work so please
make longer transmissions, and they persist in three or four word
transmissions and silence, and I am left to wonder did they die, turn it 
back or what>>>>

Not just SSB stations. Lately, I have been getting a lot of AM stations
doing the same thing: begin a transmission, sometimes brief, sometimes "old
buzzard " style, and when they turn it back to me, they just abruptly drop
the carrier, sometimes in mid-sentence, with no warning, without saying
"over", "back to you", giving a call sign or anything, leaving me wondering
did they turn it back, did the propagation change, did their rig crap out or
what? It's one thing when everyone in the QSO is working fast break-in where
that's the expected procedure, but if someone makes a 2, 3 or 5-minute
transmission to me, I expect to hear some kind of a go-ahead to indicate
that they are finished and passing it back to me.

A problem I have with the short two-word transmissions is that I usually
receive with my synchronous detector and if the station is even  slightly
off frequency the PLL doesn't have time to lock onto their carrier before
they stop transmitting, and all I hear is a short burst of heterodyne tone.
------------------------------

From: Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com>

<<<<When I get a response to a CQ by someone operating slopbucket I ignore
them and go right on calling CQ.  But starting a year or two ago, I began
identifying as call sign, frequency, "AM phone."  I'll give my call sign a
few times then the frequency and mode.  That seems to have cut down on the
sideband responses.>>>>

I probably haven't called a live CQ in five years, ever since I set up the
Sony MiniDisc recorder/player to function as a CQ robot. The recorded CQ
clearly says " calling CQ AM Phone", and at the end of the transmission
"listening in AM mode". Still, some stations insist on calling on SSB. I
don't bother to make a mad dash to throw all the switches to change over to
SSB receive mode. OTOH, sometimes if I was already  listening with the sync
detector and the SSB station is careful to zero-beat my carrier, I'm not
even aware he was on SSB, especially if he is using one of the newer SSB
rigs that transmit something that sounds better than space shuttle audio.
But I'm amazed at how many SSB stations try to answer me off frequency.

------------------------------
From: Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com>

<<<<what is "AM-Window?">>>>

It's Steve (K4HX)'s website. He used to host the "AM Bulletin Board", but
gave it up quite a few years ago. Gary, W2INR started up the AM Fone web
site and continued the bulletin board forum, but Steve maintained his AM
Window site, which continued to archive loads of good information related to
amateur AM
__________________
From: "Jim Wilhite" <w5jo at brightok.net>

<<<<Appears to be a problem.  Looks as if the site was not renewed and
someone else has it.>>>>

Hope this is just a glitch, and that he'll get it back up and running. If he
decided to discontinue it, I hope he didn't just let those archives
evaporate.



Don k4kyv