When I was considering a 480, I read that this feature exists in the QST
review of the transceiver, or perhaps in the manual.
Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, MD
http://lras.home.sprynet.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Gammon
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 2:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Adjusting sidetone on the Kenwood TS480?
Have no idea if you can adjust the side tone on the Kenwood
TS480. Anyone here know about that? Jim WA6EKS
----- Original Message -----
From: Lou Kolb <[log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Date sent: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 09:40:52 -0400
Subject: Re: 4WeWhoDoCW,AGudRtikl;dd:Zero beating, what is it,
how do we do it and why should we do itf, By N3EF
Danny,
Great article on something that has long been a pet peev of mine.
Most ops
probably don't even know where they have to tune a signal for it
to be
exactly zero-beat with the other station. They just tune to a
pitch they
like which may or may not be right on frequency. The K3 sidetone
tracks the
transmitter offset frequency so its extremely easy to zerobeat.
You just
choose a sidetone you like and make sure your receiver matches it
when you
tune in a signal and you're good to go. I think several newer
transceivers
are set up like this but for far too long it was harder than it
should've
been to zero-beat on CW.
Lou Kolb
Voice-over Artist:
Radio/TV Ads, Video narrations
Messages On-hold:
www.loukolb.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan B Dyer Jr,/Danny" <[log in to unmask]
To: <[log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 8:03 AM
Subject: 4WeWhoDoCW,AGudRtikl;dd:Zero beating, what is it, how do
we do it
and why should we do itf, By N3EF
Found this referenced on the QRPL list, and thought it a good
simple, wake
up call-reminder, and one which will cause me to make sure my
side tone is
set as required. HTH, Wb4idu.
Zero beating, what is it, how do we do it and why should we do
it
By N3EF
First, lets define what zero beating is in general. Zero beat
is the
condition reached during a measurement or calibration when the
beat
frequency between two input signals is no longer detectable.
And the beat
frequency is the frequency produced when two signals are mixed
or
combined.
The beat frequency equals the difference or offset between the
two
frequencies. In cw, we are using two audio frequencies to do
this. One
frequency is your sidetone and the other is the pitch of the
received cw
signal which changes as you adjust the tuning dial. In reality,
we are not
listening for the beat frequency. We are listening for the
sound of the
two
signals going in and out of phase with each other as the two
frequencies
get
close to each other. The two frequencies are so close, you can
barely tell
the difference between them, but you can hear a change in
intensity as
they
go in and out of phase with each other adding and subtracting in
level. It
is a "wow...wow...wow.." sound that gets slower and slower as
the two
signals get closer and closer in frequency. It is more
pronounced if the
two
signal levels are the same so you may need to adjust your volume
and/or
sidetone level. It is easier to hear the "wow...wow" sound when
listening
to
two steady tones, but you can also detect it with one steady
tone and one
switching on and off such as cw morse code. Once you get the
hang of it,
it
becomes second nature and you can do it very quickly. Here is
the sound of
two steady tones of around 750hz that start out at 50 cycles
apart and
gradually get closer until they are identical in frequency. The
sound of
the
two frequencies going in and out of phase with each other is
very
distinctive. wowwow.mp3 And here is what it sounds like when
receiving a
cw signal as I tune above and below his frequency. You can
clearly hear
the
distinctive sound made when the two frequencies are at or very
near each
other. They start out with just the received cw and then you
hear my
sidetone come on. zerobeat.mp3, zerobeat1.mp3, zerobeat2.mp3.
Now, some of the old timers will tell you that this isn't "real"
zero-beating. They will tell you that zero-beating is the way
we use to do
it when we had separate transmitters and receivers. Well, they
are wrong
in
telling you that. The way they did it was just another way of
getting your
transmit frequency the same as the one you are receiving and was
also
known
as zero-beating. The way we do it now is different, but it is
still
zero-beating.
So why should we zero-beat anyway? Well, if we don't, then we
are
transmitting on two different frequencies and using more
bandwidth than
necessary. You may be QRM'ing another nearby station. The
other op may not
like the pitch of the tones he hears and must use his RIT to
change it.
The
other op may be using a narrow filter and not even hear your
reply. I
recently operated with a special event callsign during the
Straight Key
Century Club's first anniversary special event. There were
operators from
each call district using the same callsign appended with their
respective
call district. I was calling CQ 1Kz away from another SKCC
operator.
People
answering just threw out their callsign without indicating who
they were
responding to. This is normal and acceptable as a response but
some of
them
were 500Hz off frequency directly between us...so who were they
responding
to? And what about the QRM they were causing because they didn't
take the
time and effort to zero-beat. There was no big pile-up going on
here as it
is an often used tactic to be heard when there IS a pile-up. I
was amazed
at
how many stations were calling me so far off frequency. Some
people don't
know what zero-beating is, some do but don't know how to do it,
and some
know how but think it is totally unecessary. You don't have to
spend a lot
of time and be exactly on frequency, but you should try to get
close.
There
are many aspects of working CW that mark you as a good operator.
I think
zero-beating is one of them.
There are other ways to zero-beat the other station. If your
rig has a
cw-reverse mode, you can just switch back and forth from cw to
cw-reverse
and adjust your dial until the tone sounds the same in each
mode. You can
tune until you think your close and then turn on a narrow filter
and tune
for max signal level. Some rigs like the Yaesu FT-897 have a
zero-beat
indicator lamp. There are also zero-beat indicator kits that
you can adapt
to your rig. If you have an audio output to your computer you
can use one
of
several programs available to do it via your soundcard.
One other thing you need to be aware of is that some rigs have
an
adjustable
sidetone pitch that does not track the rigs transmit offset. If
you change
the sidetone pitch, you can't use it to zero-beat properly.
I hope this article and sound files have been of help and I hope
you
consider zero-beating an important part of your operating
practices.
Long live CW!
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