[Elecraft] Signals wild...signals caged

[Fred Jensen]

In the 50's and early 60's, CW signals had some character ... a mild 
chirp maybe, a little 120 cycle hum, and since keyers were rare and many 
hams were using bugs, all sorts of different riffs from the rhythm 
section.  In a net or roundtable [we did that on CW then], you knew who 
was currently sending just by their signal.  Other than some today with 
horrendous clicks, our signals are sterile and perfect.  Zero beating 
used to be an art, now just press the SPOT button.  I miss the 
personality of those old signals.

The Windows API call to the MIDI interface includes a pointer to a table 
of codes, well over 100 of them, that define the particular "instrument" 
that will be played.  Select "Church organ" and by golly, the note 
sounds just like a pipe organ in a big empty room.  Since the K4 
processor(s) are said to have nearly unlimited firmware expansion space, 
how about a small table with entries like: "2021 Perfect," "1955 new 
General with VFO chirp," "Not quite big enough caps full-wave hum," 
"Heath VF-1 Chow Pee Chow Pee", "Slow drifter," etc.  When you sit down 
for a few QSO's, you select which you'd like to be.  Perhaps Wayne can 
put that on the "To-Do after the K4 ships" list. 😉

Incidentally, the 50's ham bands, although a little drifty/chirpy/hummy, 
were nearly perfect compared to the marine CW bands.  Commercial 
Coastal, Navy, and Coast Guard stations were stable and clean, ships ... 
not so much.  Ships had DC power mains and used motor-generator sets to 
get the high voltages required by the transmitters.  It was common to 
use A2 emissions [MCW] particularly on the Holy Frequency and the MF 
frequencies around it. The TX chirped and drifted, the M-G set put a 
whine on the carrier which exhibited a slow chirp, the MCW chirped, none 
necessarily in the same direction.  Some of the carrier chirps would go 
all the way through your RX passband, you had to copy from either the 
front end or back end of the dits and dahs.  The entire ensemble sounded 
almost musical ... if you consider an elementary school band to be musical.

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 1/28/2021 10:25 AM, Doug Turnbull wrote:
> Wayne,
>       Nicely put and so true.    However as I remember the Novice bands were
> a zoo, General class operators avoided us.    A CQ could go on for several
> minutes but it was a fun playpen.    Wow staying up to 2 AM could yield a
> QSO in Oklahoma all the way from Virginia on 40M.    That was a QSO you
> could brag about.   My surplus TCS rig would not go onto 15M so real DX was
> pretty much out for the first two months of my Novice ticket, then the
> General Class exam was passed and what a difference.     They were good days
> but the chirp is well left in the past.
>
>            Yes we need to return to the true path of CW, FT8 is a drug and
> makes many of us lazy, mea maxima culpa.   Thank you Wayne.
>
>                                   73 Doug EI2CN
>