[Elecraft] SSB - Fooie!

[George, W5YR]

I don't know where the 20 dB advantage figure for CW over SSB comes from,
but both Larry and I were around during the early days of the AM/SSB wars.
A number of analysis papers were published in all the ham literature, but
as I recall the consensus was that sideband offered an overall 9 dB over
DSB AM in terms of S/N and some intangibles like power consumption, final
amplifier efficiency, etc.

I can see where CW would improve over SSB considering the use of, say, a
300 Hz bandwidth rather than 3000 Hz. That should be good for a factor of
10 or 10dB in S/N improvement, working on the back of an old envelope.

So I would tend to look upon CW as being probably 9-12 dB superior to SSB
in S/N, depending upon the bandwidths involved, but I don't think that I
could give it 20 dB.

Larry, what do you recall about all this? What am I forgetting about?

73/72, George    
Amateur Radio W5YR -  the Yellow Rose of Texas
In the 57th year and it just keeps getting better!
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe
K2 #489      Icom IC-765 #2349     Icom IC-756 PRO  #2121



Larry East wrote:
> 
> 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...