[Elecraft] SSB - Fooie!

[Larry East]

At 08:51 PM 10/8/02 -0400, kc4kgu@ENTERZONE.NET wrote:

>Larry, that's no attitude to have.  If you just enjoy CW, that's one thing
>but, it's kinda hard to screw up pulsing a carrier.  There are a lot of
>variables involved with SSB.  Especially if it isn't a mode that you
>operate much with on your rig, you may not have everything quite right and
>the folks may not have heard you very well.

Hogwash! I can have any attitude that I want at my age! :-)

The biggest "variable" is that many SSB ops don't think any signal below S9 
is "good copy". I have been a ham now for 51 years and I have worked plenty 
of QRP DX -- most on CW but a bunch also on SSB. I have worked DX stations 
on both SSB and CW running 100W to 1KW that were rather week yet they were 
willing and able to hear my 5W. I've called stations state-side that were 
over S9 with no response. Maybe they had high noise levels, poor receivers, 
were listening on the wrong VFO or whatever -- but that seems to happen 
much more often on SSB than on CW.

Just to reinforce (but not necessarily prove...) my point, a few minutes 
ago I tuned my K2 down to the lower part of 17M, heard a JK1 finish a QSO, 
gave him a call and he came right back to me. He was 559 and gave me 529 -- 
and he copied my name, QTH and rig with no repeats. (Granted, the "1" call 
helps get the attention of Pacific Rim stations! :-)

Someone claimed that CW has a 20dB advantage in S/N over SSB -- Fooie! The 
advantage is more in the range 6-9dB, but highly dependent on the receiver 
bandwidth.

72/73
Larry W1HUE/7

PS - I am also "technically competent" as demonstrated by my publications 
in various ham mags (mostly QRP) over the years. And I own more test 
equipment than just a RatShack DVM...