Re[2]: [Elecraft] QSK? Newbie question

[coca]

RDEC> Within the lifetimes of many of us OT's, this sort of QSK was only a dream -
RDEC> at best. Big coastal telegraph stations working ships at sea usually had the
RDEC> receiver and transmitter sites separated by dozens of miles, so QSK was
RDEC> simple. Indeed, they were often on different frequencies, necessitating some
RDEC> sort of local sidetone to hear what they were sending. 

I was that man! I spent 10 years at sea in the British merchant
navy working all those big coastal satations :-)

IMO the most impressive US CRS was Slidell/WNU in Florida although I
have to be patriotic and say that Portishead/GKA was the best...


RDEC> But for those of us with a single transmitter/receiver site, it was a bit

[...]

Thanks for the explanation.



RDEC> As solid state T/R switching became cheaper than relays for the
RDEC> manufacturers it showed up in commercial Ham gear. AS soon as one wasn't
RDEC> tied to the speed of a relay, the race was on for faster and faster QSK
RDEC> speeds driven by ways to help the receiver "recover" faster and faster. To
RDEC> what end this OT has never figured out, some ops today don't consider the
RDEC> QSK to be "right" unless they can hear between dits!! 


As I said in an earlier msg, ships had separate rxs and txs and most
of the muting that I saw was done off the back contacts of the key. As
soon as it lifted it muted all the (HF) rxs in the shack (usually 2,
sometimes up to 4) and muted the ship's communal aerial system. It was
all relay driven so there was full QSK. It was quite important that
you could hear between the dits if you were working one of the busy
CRSs as they didn't take kindly having to hang around waiting for you
when they might have QRYs of 30-40 ships.


RDEC> Ummm. What was the "stupid question" you wanted to ask. Never found it <G>.

Stupid question, excellent answer!

cheers