I was still a SWL in the sixties and remember the
sideband war vividly. It was going on as late as 1968 and 1969
and had all the same trappings as what you hear on 14.313 today.

	There is a subset of amateur operators who think this is
somehow okay. Back then, they were jamming and cursing each
other over sideband versus AM and today, it is the same behavior
over Heaven knows what. It's hard to tell because it just kind
of goes on and on for no particularly good reason.

	The only thing I can say is that when they are all on
14.313 or 3.850 making fools of themselves, they are off all the
other frequencies and life is more civilized there. Think of it
as kind of a dummy load. Many of them like to use big amplifiers
and, if they would all aim at the same patch of ionosphere, they
could possibly heat it up enough to open up ten meters or maybe
even 6.

	Anyway, the sideband war was just the excuse for rotten
behavior for that day. The same personality types really don't
need an excuse to be idiots so there will always be scoff-laws
who don't really understand what amateur radio is all about.

	Thanks for a good bit of history.

73, Martin
"Ronald E. Milliman" writes:
> 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.