The AM Forum

It's 6pm with still some daylight outside and I see the trons sbe rig on 3.888 ish wobbling around. Looks like it may b a good night.

some kind of big slopbucket QRMtest this weekend.  Calling all strappers...

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=30680.0

Where does it say that?   ???

Default 5-9  LMAO!!!!! Why bother even exchanging a "default".  Heck, just look up people on a DX-Cluster and email them "psst, I need  your contact, you're 5-9 OM"

Yeah then that 'lidlist' guy there will post that you are a "lid". Those were some weird stories but lidlist.com seems gone.

You guys are funny.
Reading and actual interpretation can sometimes elude the best of men.  ;D

ok, now lets stay on topic.  ;D

Roger roger Brandon, I copy you QSL 100% 5 and 9 REPEAT 1,2,3,4,5 by 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

OVER OVER

Why not just behave?
Contests have always been a pain to me but I have no intention of becoming a pain myself. Lots of room for all of us. My 2 cents. Intentional annoying of others does nothing to further our great hobby. It could backfire. 
Don Ve3LYX

There is NOT enough room for all of us during contests.  THAT IS THE POINT.  THEY MISBEHAVE and act like little children.

Once upon a time, there was an FCC rule against simultaneous amplitude and frequency modulation.  Sometimes even operating a BC-610 with the built-in tuning unit VFO would bring a citation on 20m. The FeeCee eventually deleted that rule, I believe with the R&O they issued for (Bandwidth) Docket 20777 back in the 70s.  They also deleted the rule making it illegal to run in excess of 100% modulation.  I suspect they just assumed that AM would soon die out and go away, and considered those two rules superfluous.  But AM didn't go away.  Now, those rules no longer exist, making the SBE perfectly legal.

Timtron's SBE rig actually used to sound pretty good. Quite Hi-FI. If you were listening in a fairly wide bandwidth you really didn't notice it wobble. But in a narrow receive BW it was quite a different animal.

I dont remember if it was his, or someone elses (maybe W2ZM) but you could hear it wobble frequency as the wind blew the feedline around!

Modulated oscilators can be a lot of fun :o  ;D

Listen to Timtron on a windy day and run the BFO.  You get a very musical experience.  Although sometimes when conditions are rough and the filters have to get narrowed down it looses it's appeal...

I built a modulated oscillator (TPTG) rig for the 80m AM QRP net.  Worked Pissa, but was a real killer to get tuned on frequency.

Or with a Flex in SAM mode (synchronous detector). Sounds like he's playing a theremin.  ;D

Or my Icom R-75 in Sync Det mode :)

It's especially annoying with any synchronous detection type receiver. Of course, if you crave operating attention on the amateur bands, this is one way to do it.

Yes some people feed it on the air, and others do it right here threw there keyboard.

"There is NOT enough room for all of us during contests."
That is true but it isnt because they are Slop buckets and we are AM . It is just as bad on CW if not worse. If I hear CQ contest in any mode SSB AM CW I turn the rigs off and do something else. Pointless to try and have an interesting conversation in the midst of high power light dimming overmodulated rigs trying to get that extra one in their log. It has been like that as long as I have had my ticket. 30 plus years. I do not believe it has anything to do with us being on AM. It is just the nature of the contest freaks. Rude, over legal power and uncaring.
Don VE3LYX

Yeah I never meant it in the context of AM.  It's true of any mode I want to casually operate, which is the only way I operate.   Contests should be renamed to Congests.

It kind of feels like the 'locusts' have come on big contest weekends, eating everything in their way.

I've often thought that maybe in response to a 'con'test, one could plan a 'pro'test. Say a weekend long AM SSTV contest timed to coincide with sweepstakes. Beacon continuously and your score is how many people can copy a good picture from you through the QRM. Multiplier for transmitter power. x1 for 100 watts carrier, x2 for 250 watts carrier, x3 for 375 watts. Times your occupied bandwidth, times the number of continuous key down hours.  :o

Think they might get the point? Heck, just *scheduling* such an event should give them heart palpitations.  ;D

actually, that made me think of an experiment i'd like to see done, how good a SSTV picture looks transmitted by a hi-fi sounding AM transmitter compared to a SSB rig.

Highly skilled contesters, and there are many of them, can push interference right out of their band-pass. Providing more QRM, other then what's already generated by a multitude of contesters, would only stimulate them to develop better operating rigs, bigger and better antennas, etc. In the long run, you wouldn't solve a thing other then, maybe, a personal ego blast.

Probably better just to go fishing.
Don VE3LYX

Only if you like fishing.
There's always 60 M, 30 M, 17 M, 12 M, and everything above 50 MHz when there's an HF contest. Amateur radio operating doesn't end when there's a HF contest; it just starts the P&M from the non-participants.

good one. There would be two identical sidebands so some diversity or anti-selective-fading could take place and make it better.

Yea, what HE said! ! ! ! ! ! !

If it is a corntest weekend, I usually wont even fire up a receiver. good time to tinker out in the garage, take care of honey-do's, wash the dog or something other than radio! ! ! ! !

I'd be up for that experiment sometime. Can run MMSSTV for analog and EZPAL for digital.


As far as contesters developing superior tactics to deal with the QRM, maybe to an extent, but I bet it would still make some take notice that folks are getting kind of fed up with the "We eat the whole band" attitude that prevails with most contesters. I think contesters would have a hard time with wall to wall WinDRM beacons at significant power. They are pretty dense, like the old cold war jammers.

So far, they just ride over everyone with the attitude of 'well, what are you going to do about it?', just like any bully. Bullies usually become reasonable after a few smacks in the nose to make them realize they aren't untouchable. Just saying a shot or two across the bow might bring them to the bargaining table in good faith to maybe work out some bandwidth restrictions on how much space a contest can occupy.

Right now their attitude is that they get to take any band except the WARC bands and phooey on you. (While I like the WARC bands, I take exception to being run off my normal uses for their convenience half the year.) Some here might prefer that they be restricted to LOWfer ville down at 170 khz. Those are extreme endpoints. A reasonable position might be to allocate 50 khz per band for contesting and let volunteer OO's pick off the ones outside the limits for a disqualification. After all, they have all these superior filters and capabilities, being crowded into 50 khz will be good for their skills, sharpen them right up. Right?

I doubt it. The P&M non-contesting (I have no place to operate) crowd has been around for as long as amateur radio. Look back in 30's and 40's QST's and you'll see the same P&M being hashed about. And seeing that contesting (all types - International, domestic, VHF/UHF, local clubs, bird clubs, etc.) has been probably one of most active and enjoyable of all amateur radio activities, trying to corral "them" (all Amateurs in the world) into some small segment of a band won't ever happen.