[Elecraft] Re: USB on all bands ??

[Mike Morrow]

>The convention currently in use is merely traditional and reflects
>military preference for standardization (due to channelization)
>promulgated in the early days of SSB.

LSB use on 40m and below is *strictly* a HAM convention.  Military,
commercial marine, and civil aviation standardized on USB from the
very earliest days of the SSB era.

Almost all *early* non-shipboard US military sideband sets offered
*only* USB mode.  This includes the late 1950s USAF AN/ARC-65 and
the USN AN/ARC-38A sets for aircraft, and the AN/GRC-106 and AN/PRC-47
for ground service.  These were among the earliest SSB sets in common
military use.

The succeeding generation of sets offered selectable sideband.  This
includes the USAF AN/ARC-58, USN AN/ARC-94 (618T-2), AN/FRC-93 (KWM-2A),
AN/URC-32, AN/URC-58 and AN/GRC-165 (Harris RF-301), AN/PRC-74,
RT-618/URC, T-827/URT, R-1051/URR, etc.  But these all date from the
early 1960s and later, long after HAMs had settled on LSB on 40m and
below.

Even though some later sets offered LSB, or even ISB, it was almost
never used.  When I was associated with US military communication systems,
the only time I ever saw LSB used on a military frequency was on Military
Affilliated Radio System (MARS) nets.  Since MARS is comprised mainly
of HAMs, years ago *some* circuits followed the HAM convention for net
frequencies below about 7.5 MHz.  But even MARS eventually went
completely to USB.

Mike / KK5F