don,

Your comments about the wwv cw signal from years ago reminded me of a very
specific example of how cw will out do a side band signal under poor
conditions.  I was about 15 years old at the time and had probably been a
general for about a year.  It was probably the summer of 66 or 67.  My uncle
came and picked me up in Omaha and took me back to his place in Wichita,
Kansas for two or three weeks.  He lived on the edge of town and had about
an acre of land so he got me two telephone poles, put them up, and we strung
a 40 and 80 meter dipole between them.  I stayed up until almost 5 in the
morning each day playing around on the bands, working DX, and talking to
friends back in Nebraska.  One day, I checked into the Nebraska noon time
net but signals were very weak.  After the net, a blind ham friend, who got
his ticket about the same time I did, stayed on the frequency and talked to
me.  The side band signals were so weak, we were only getting about half the
conversation.  Since he enjoyed cw about as much as I did and since it was
the middle of the day and there was no other side band activity on 75
meters, we stayed on frequency and switched to CW.  The copy was solid.
When we would try going back to side band, we went back to about 50 50 copy.
CW remained solid all afternoon.  The signals were about the same strength,
of course, but the CW always made it through.  We both were running Drake
TR4 rigs so we both were running about 150 watts output.  It proved to me
how CW gets through when even side band doesn't work all that well.  I still
do not know to this day why I fell in love with CW when I was a kid but I
have always enjoyed it.

Phil.
k0nx