[Elecraft] What does the frequency readout mean?

[Don Wilhelm]

Pete.

All Elecraft radios that I know about display the transmitted carrier 
frequency in CW and the suppressed carrier frequency in SSB mode.

Your sidetone pitch setting is related to properly tuning a CW signal 
and knowing its frequency.  If you tune the received signal to a pitch 
the same as your Sidetone pitch (that is zero-beat with the station), 
you will transmit on the same frequency as the station you are receiving 
(with RIT and XIT turned off).

Turning RIT on will not move your transmit frequency, but will change 
your receive frequency.  Turning XIT on will not alter the receive 
frequency, but will change the transmit frequency.  I think of RIT or 
XIT as a 'mini split'.
To add a bit more to the mental girations, the receive frequency 
displayed IS changed with RIT, so in order to determine your transmit 
frequency, you have to add or subtract the RIT offset (or just turn RIT 
off and you will see the transmit frequency in the display).
With RIT on, what the display is telling you (assuming you used RIT to 
tune the station to zero beat) is the carrier frequency of the received 
signal.

Simply changing the sidetone pitch setting without tuning the received 
signal to that pitch will accomplish nothing useful IMHO.

73,
Don W3FPR


On 2/19/2013 4:35 PM, Pete Smith N4ZR wrote:
> I'm having a hard time getting my head around this. My radio is on 
> 3507.02 USB-CW, with a 500 Hz Pitch setting. I change the Pitch 
> setting to 300 Hz, and the display still reads 3507.02.  What is this 
> frequency?  The suppressed-carrier frequency plus the CW pitch?  Does 
> that mean that when I change the pitch, the radio is actually moving 
> its frequency a little bit?
>
> A somewhat related question.  Same setup, but listening to a signal on 
> the air.  "Beat note" is ~500 Hz.  I turn the RIT so that the received 
> signal is lower frequency - say 200 Hz.  I transmit.  What does the 
> station on the other end hear, assuming he is also using USB-CW?  Does 
> my "beat note" go up in his receiver, or down?
>