Re: If CW is dead....

Len:

ahhhhh....

I like to build antennas... I like to experiment with them...

But, I am a software engineer, not a hardware engineer (some of the
math interests me) and frankly, anyone who will pay attention to my
rants about the either consider me a loon <frown>... something has to seem
like "magic" to me--or I will lose faith altogether! <grin>

I tend to look at the whole antenna as a "tunable balun" which interfaces
the signal from the transmitter to the ether--the ether being a
near-superconductor, or at the very least--a "superior conductor."

I am still stuck on just studying, devising new feeds for, and generally
playing with the 1/2 vertical on 10 meters, nice size to work with,
some local amateurs on the freqs there, etc... and the lack of need of a
counterpoise (virtually) makes the 1/2 wave interesting and fun... I have
built dozens of them and given quite a few away... my "coaxial match" is
my most exciting development to date, simple, stable, almost bullet proof
and an excellent performer! I am waiting for the next revelation as I
type here, and type here, and type here, and type here, and type here...

<deep-in-thought-and-highly-intellectual-look-on-the-face-to-fool-'em!>

John

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:59:15 -0700, LenAnderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:

> From: John Smith on Aug 27, 4:52 pm
>
>>Len:
>>
>>Unfortunately, the only things more dead than CW is the brain dead
>>amateurs too dumb to stop sounding ignorant, I mean, before they opened
>>their mouths (or fingers on the keyboard) we only wondered, now we know,
>>having been shown time and time again... <frown>
>
> Well, so be it, I'm saddened to see. I'll just try to inform
> these poor souls (or pour souls in some, they obviously pouring
> something before writing) what military radio IS, not what they
> imagine it to be.
>
> Ackshully, FM 24-18 is a good tutorial for a beginner. In re-
> checking the link given, there's a download-the-whole-thing link
> at the bottom but the file is roughly 10 MB in size. Takes a few
> minutes to get. [glad I already had it on a CD) It has an
> objective comparison of wire antenna gains in various
> terrain/environment, untainted by advertising claims and
> myths of some amateur users.
>
> FM 24-24 is available from the Army Training and Doctrine Command
> Digital Library. It is a veritable catalog of land force radios
> and communications devices as of 1994. Public distribution. I've
> given the link to it before in here. The ATDLS website has
> changed slightly so those precise links I gave before won't get
> there, but anyone can do so from the 'web, through their home
> page. Some of the equipment shown has gone obsolete in the past
> 9 years, or it is in storage in a depot "just in case" or whatever.
>
> The ITT 'web page has more informative technical material on the
> SINCGARS family of radios. Aerospace and Ground Division at
> Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the old Magnavox plant. Harris Corporation
> has some more plus future things they are trying to get contracts
> on, forgotten division name for the moment (somebody will pipe up
> with the correct name in triumph and imagined glory). Harris
> has already sold some SINCGARS-compatible work-alikes to the UK
> last year.
>
> SINCGARS is interesting in that it doesn't have so many of the
> conventional controls. From day one it has a Touchscreen for
> entering frequency, for entering net properties (frequency
> hopping pattern). A little OS built into the internal micro-
> processor. When commanding it to frequency/net operation, one
> enters a "hopset" (colloquial) which is a rather large data
> group with its own authenticators from a separate piece of
> equipment to be used at local Net central. Internal power
> demand at idle (such as in transport or listening only) is so low
> that it all the entered data is retained until the LiON battery
> is replaced. Internal time/frequency accuracy is phenomenal over
> the full military environmental range. Newer models (the
> SINCGARS Improvement Plan or SIP versions) will allow the "Plugger"
> (AN/PSN-11) GPS receiver to connect to it to synchronize the
> internal time/frequency to the GPS. The "Plugger" (military
> refined nickname in place of what GIs have called it - the PSN)
> saw its first field operational duty in the First Gulf War. A
> very few PRC-119s were tried then, but not many fielded in 1990
> since the first ones went to Army forces in Korea. The frequency
> hopping rate is 10 per second, damn hard to get a handle on in
> the field for either DF or interception. With digitized voice
> or data, SIP versions have built-in crypto (selectable) while
> the older versions needed external COMSEC keyers. It is also
> "QRP"-like in that there's a three-position front panel switch
> to select RF power output; DX it ain't but that isn't needed in
> small-unit ops. The vehicular model with larger PA can push out
> some RF for (easily) up to 200 miles. It ain't yer daddie's
> old backpack raddio and it beats the old (but still neat)
> AN/PRC-10 I once wore on weekly sojer training sessions in the
> 1950s. The Harris AN/PRC-150 covering HF through UHF is
> compatible with some more bells and whistles in it, all in
> manpack size and weight.
>
> The AN/PRC-104 IHFR (Improved High Frequency Radio) family debuted
> in 1986 out of Hughes Aircraft Co. Ground Division. For those
> missions where HF is thought to be better, it can do so nicely,
> even the manpack version having an automatic antenna tuner (using
> latching relays to hold the L and C selections for the internal L
> network). Little microprocessor in that, too, also controlling
> the frequency synthesizer permitting good SSB performance. COMSEC
> is external with that model but they handle all the voice/data
> crypto formats. Early PRC-104s had a KY-114 knee key (why, I don't
> know) which was left out of later models.
>
> Back in World War 2 times, someone at the Pentagon thought it a
> fine idea to improve the horse cavalry radio...a lighter and
> better version than the 1930s model they did have but needed to
> be set up and operated while the troop was stopped. The answer
> was in the BC-511, the infamous "guidon radio" (set was IN the
> combination guidon-bottom with top mount whip antenna, carried
> like the old horse cavalry guidon pennant). That was thunk up
> around 1942. However, at the same time HORSE cavalry was
> disbanded in the U.S. Army! Motorola in Chicago made a bunch
> of them. Neat little sets, AM and on low HF, crystal controlled.
> So, a whole bunch of horse cavalry radios being made with no
> horse cavalry to use it! Stagnated old-soldier thinking in DC.
> Infantry got some of them, GIs calling it the "pogo stick,"
> terribly clumsy to use on foot. Some new-soldier thinking got
> vehicle adapters for them but those pogo-sticks went surplus
> storage when the BC-1000 Walkie-Talkies were built (also by
> Motorola in Chicago, also beginning in 1943). The SCR-300 (using
> BC-1000 R/T) was FM voice-only on low VHF. It weighed the same
> as the cavalry pogo-stick but was in backpack form and much more
> mobile on foot, worked far better in the field as a radio.
>
> Some of the "old radio ops" just can't give up morsemanship. It
> must be part of their religion or whatever. Like the never-quit
> horse cavalryman of long ago, their beliefs insist that "CW" or
> on-off keying of a carrier is somehow "necessary" for today.
> They can't be budged from that in "the service." :-)
>
> It's like 60+ years ago, the cavalrymen insisting that all "good
> soldiers" had to know how to ride a horse...even when the horses
> were put out to pasture, glue, or pet food. So it is when all
> other radio services have abandoned morse code for communications
> purposes, U.S. amateur radio morsemen INSIST that morsemanship
> MUST be in the amateur license test. Horsesnit.
>
> LenAnderson@xxxxxxxx

.

Relevant Pages