The modern Yaesu and Kenwood transceivers do this, also.  You can adjust the 
sidetone/offset pitch, so on my 950 I have it set to 500 Hz.
There are two problems in contesting.  When you are calling CQ some people 
can be 200 hZ or more off your frequency and they may fall outside the 
narrow passband you have set.  But many transceivers have a visual zero-beat 
indicator.  If several stations zero beat you, you cannot copy any of them 
unless one is quite strong; you hope that somebody will be off by 50 hZ or 
so.  When trying to break through a pileup, you want to transmit near where 
the last caller was, but not on exactly the frequency of other stations 
trying to do the same thing.



Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, MD
http://lras.home.sprynet.com
-----Original Message----- 
From: Lou Kolb
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 9:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
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!