[Boatanchors] TURBO RANGER FS

[Ed Tanton]

Hi Ray,

While I am not the most qualified person to answer this (since I have not
worked AM in literally decades, and very rarely work SSB these days)
still... I have my own ideas about an answer. Here goes. 

1. 1st the "Broadcast" thing. The term is one of those phrases which-in this
case-denotes audio of a higher quality than 'ordinary' audio (whatever that
means) with a subtitle of maintaining great-sounding audio while at the same
time increasing whatever factors you may apply towards increasing the
'punch' of your transmitted signal-yet remaining within some acceptable
level of minor signal quality loss;

2. For many of us, there has to be a step or degree beyond simply
communicating. In the early 60s I was running a Hallicrafters HT-9 into a
single-wire-feed OCF Windom antenna, along with most of the nearby TV sets.
An 814 tube plate-modulated by 4 6L6s. BEAUTIFUL audio. Of course one added
as clunky a relay as possible (mounted on the chassis of course!) to
increase that thun-n-n-g!!! when you did hit the T/R Switch. Any old audio
would do for simple communicating. THIS was audio at its sweetest best-and
thereby, something more than anything possible with-for example-screen
modulation;

3. I once went over to an AF MARS guy's house back in those days. SSB was
just really getting started, and many references were made to Donald Duck
when 'us' AM guys talked about this new mode. I had heard some nice SSB
audio over at W4ANT's. He was the 1st guy in Montgomery, AL to get the
complete Collins S-Line that was just out. D. Duck or not, it DID
communicate. Quite well in fact when tuned in on that fine Collins gear
instead of doing the best I could with my MIL surplus RBS-2 receiver and its
BFO. The point? When my mentor Mac, W4HYI, took me over to that MARS guy's
shack, and I heard a superb R-390-A with a SSB Converter that was likely a
CV-157, it was the most awesome SSB speech I had ever heard come through a
speaker-and remains the best I have EVER heard to this day. If you settled
for simply communicating, why bother with that?

So all the above is my way of saying that there is more to Amateur Radio
than communicating for some (many? most?) of us. The motivation is never a
single, simplistic reason, but I believe almost always multi-faceted. The
sheer joy of communicating while knowing your efforts to attain the quality
signal you are transmitting is satisfaction/motivation enough. The
compliments on your signal quality are the icing on the cake.


Ed Tanton
 
website: http://www.n4xy.com 
 
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"Right is right, even if everyone is 
against it; and wrong is wrong, even 
if everyone is for it."

William Penn
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