RadioBanter - View Single Post

November 28th 03, 11:04 PM

In article , Alun
writes:

(Len Over 21) wrote in
:

In article ,
(N2EY) writes:

In article k.net,
"KØHB" writes:

..... it's about the qualifications.

The incessant arguments here on rrap surround the question of whether
or not there should be a Morse TEST for access to HF.

Well, that's the wrong question.

The real question is whether or not you should be Morse qualified for
access to HF.

If there is no regulatory need for Morse qualification, then there is
no need for Morse testing.

The need for Morse qualification, as clearly stated in the 1913 radio
regulations was "The applicant must be able to transmit and receive in
Continental Morse, at a speed sufficient to enable him to recognize
distress calls or the official "keep-out" signals." Since that
qualification need has long since disappeared, then so has the need
for the qualification test.

Hans,

If you want people to quit making fun of you, quit posting such
laughable reductio ad absurdum arguments.

Incorrect. The necessity for tested demonstration of morsemanship
FOR LICENSING of any radio operator, any radio service, has
disappeared in the 90 years of time since 1913.

That stated 1913 need for Morse code qualifications is not the only
reason such qualifications were kept in the rules all these years.
There are lots more.

Not to the FCC.

In 1913 (or 1912) there was ONLY on-off keying of so-called CW
RF sources. Despite the Fessenden demonstration of 1906 on
Christmas Eve (done with an ALTERNATOR RF source, NOT a
"spark" transmitter),

The alternator was driving a spark gap, so it was a spark transmitter. Not
only that, but there was a circuit known before that to keep a spark gap
continuously energised without using an alternator, and that had actually
been used by Duddell to transmit voice, although originally invented by
someone else for arc lights (much the same thing as spark tansmitters in
many ways, anyway!).

The Thomas H. White "Early Radio History" pages on the Internet
give the details on Fessenden's audio experiments and includes
several photographs. [I've given the website address in here]

The carbon-arc lamp was not a Fessenden innovation nor is it related
to "radio." :-)

Fessenden's innovation was to run the alternator at 80 kHz, i.e. well
above audio. Before that, only telegraphy transmitters could use
alternators, which enabled you to run kilowatts instead of just a few
watts, amplifiers having yet to be invented and detectors of the day being
very 'deaf'.

From what I can see in the history, Reginald Fessenden's only
"innovation" was to connect a specially-designed carbon
microphone in series with the LF transmitter's antenna lead and
then say it was a "voice and music transmitter." :-)

Let's just say that the great voice broadcast of 1906 was
PRIMITIVE insofar as technology was concerned. :-)

Even if the early radio receivers were also of low sensitivity, they
could receive AM. Most of the radio amateur's spark transmitters
of those pre-WW1 times used arc repetition rates of less than a
KiloHertz and were therefore distinguishable from atmospheric
noise...they were, essentially, AM detectors.

There isn't any recorded radio industry history of any rush to get
into radio broadcasting by the Fessenden "AM" of 1900 through
into the post-WW1 period, regardless of the high-tech of those
times. Broadcasting would have to wait for improvement of the
vacuum tube...and broadcasting was the driving industry of radio
development up to 1920 or so. Voice and music broadcasting,
not by morse code. :-) ...and not by having high-heat mikes
sitting in antenna leads series modulating the amplitude of the
transmitters... :-) :-) :-) :-)

--------

The deliberate misdirection of a few regulars in here is to get well
away from the subject of morse code and any test requirement.
The nit-picking on the type/kind of Fessenden AM transmitter is one
thing and those regulars distort recorded historical information on
voice transmission. One even goes so far to introduce cellular
telephones with the insistence that "turning on a cell phone handset
automatically establishes contact with the nearest cell site" which it
does NOT. Such is misdirection from the difference between the
power-on control with the actual call/transmit control on the handset.
Such things result in lots of "angry" words of denunciation occupying
lots of time NOT about the code test.

The claim that proficiency in morse code results in "more ethical,
more polite radio operators" is another one of the misdirections, along
with all the other pre-WW2 mythos and fairystories about morse code
pervading the psyches of devout morsemen. :-)

Happy holidays, Alun,
LHA