Re the Sideband war

When sideband was first introduced, it was double sideband; that is, both
sidebands were transmitted, but the carrier was suppressed. Thus, the
signal still took up about the same bandwidth, but all of the transmitting
energy was put in the audio component of the signal and not wasting power
in the production and transmission of an unnecessary carrier. World Radio
Labs (WRL) came out with a transmitter, the Globe Sidebander DSB-100, which
was DSBSC or Double Side Band Suppressed Carrier.  As I recall, by having
two identical tubes in the final with the plates connected in parallel for
output and feeding the oscillator signal to the grids in push-pull and the
audio to the screens in push-pull, it would cancel the carrier and leave
only the two sidebands. These very early sideband transmitters used this
phasing technology to null out the carrier, and they were a bit tricky to
tune and get the carrier totally nulled out. Plus, on the receiver end, the
DSB signals were very hard to detect with standard receivers that lacked
any tight filters in the signal path.  The two sidebands were out of phase
with each other and unless you could eliminate that other sideband, it was
difficult to decode and understand.  Unless you had a really expensive
receiver, like a Collins, you just couldn't receive the signal worth a
flip. So, DSB rigs never really gained much market acceptance. 

 Then, it was not very long before rigs were introduced that were single
sideband, filtering out the second, unwanted sideband, but allowing the op
to select either the upper or lower sideband. There is a reason for the
upper sideband being used on some bands and the lower sideband used on
others. It goes back to adapting some of the World War II military surplus
gear to ham use, and using one of the ARC 5's as a V F O, but I won't go
into all of that here. One of the very earliest single sideband rigs was
the Central Electronics 10-A. I owned a 10-A. It was only 10 watts PEP
(peak envelope power), and I made lots of contacts with it before building
a linear amplifier to boost the power up. 

A war broke out between the AM'ers and the sidebanders. Frankly, if you are
putting emphasis on audio quality, there is nothing like a good ol', well
modulated AM signal with a D104 microphone, but if you are putting your
emphasis on communications, simply getting an intelligable signal to the
receiver in the most efficient manner possible, then, you have to go with
the single sidebanders. 

there were many who refused to adopt this new sideband mode of operation.
There were lots of critics who said things like: "You can't tune them in
quickly enough to understand what they were saying." Admittedly, you had to
learn to tune a signal correctly.  As we all know, mistuning will make the
ham on the other end sound either too high-pitched or too low-pitched.
Females and young users with naturally higher-pitched voices actually arre
harder to tune in but it is a matter of practicing and learning how to do it.

 In addition, and this was part of the "takes too long to tune in"
argument, most of the new sideband rigs used a new feature called "VOX" or
voice operated relay.  With VOX, then as now, when you talk --- the
transmitter is keyed on and the receiver is muted.  When the user stops
talking, the transmitter is unkeyed and the receiver comes back to life.
Many users had a difficult time becoming accustomed to VOX because there
was often much clicking of relays. Besides, if someone yelled: will you get
the hell off that blasted thing and get some work done," the whole world
would know about it, or if the dog started barking at the doorbell, it
would trip the VOX, the barking dog would be transmitted all over the
world, and the relays would chatter! VOX was good and VOX was convenient
but it did require some careful monitoring to be a success.

So, to stop the constant clicking from the VOX operation, many hams would
add an "uhhhhhhhh" between sentences or while they were thinking of the
next thing they wanted to say.  This led many ops to develop some very poor
speech habits that would get you a grade of F in your speech class!

Another major criticism of SSB was splatter.  Splatter can be caused by
several things including running a sideband transmitter with excessive
audio that can cause "buck-shotting."  When this happens, a splattering
station can be heard down the band, quite some frequency distance away from
where you are operating, and then, as they hit voice peaks they cause
offending and "crappy" sounding signals, which obscure what you're trying
to hear.   Of course, over modulating an AM signal can create similar
problems. While we most commonly used non-linear, Class C, RF amplifiers on
our AM rigs, it was important for the amplifiers used for SSB to be as
linear as possible, e.g. Class A or AB1, etc.  For instance, if 1 watt is
put into the amplifier and 10 watts comes out, then 2 watts in should
result in 20 watts out.  If that linear condition is not met, the resulting
signal will be distorted and very poor and will most assuredly cause
difficulties for others trying to operate in the same band.

The war got pretty hot and very, very ugly. Am'ers would gang-up on the
sidebanders and set up QSOs and round tables right on top of the
sidebanders, creating as much QRM as possible. There was lots of name
calling, and they were definitely not very complimentary names! This war
lasted for a few years. I don't remember how long, but from the very
beginning to the very end, I would say it lasted the better part of 10
years. In fact, there were many of the old hams that never did switch over
to sideband and ran their AM rigs to the day they became silent keys.  

 My very first SSB transmitter was a Central Electronics 10-A, and it was a
very solid little rig, but in my heart, I still love those old AM
transmitters, like the WRL Globe King, the Collins KWS1, and the most
popular Heathkit DX-100. If you adjusted the plate modulation just right
with a quality, D104 microphone, it would sound like the most professional
AM broadcast signal! What a pleasure to listen to!! 

Ron, K8HSY

Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325 
Email: [log in to unmask]

Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee

Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee

President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)