You may be quite right, Tom. Many of us have various levels of hearing loss.
However, the "red flag" that causes people to say things like that is the use of the phrase "matching tones". There is *no* "matching tones" in the process of zero beating, which gives the impression the person is trying to do the wrong thing! We don't care what frequency the "tones" we're hearing are. We are listening for the third tone that disappears when "zero beat" is achieved. So it's only a matter of hearing whether a tone is there or not. It WAS easier in the "old days" because there was only one tone and we tuned until it disappeared completely. Nowadays we have three tones, only one of which disappears at 'zero beat'. Having the other two tones, whatever frequency they might be, at the *same* level makes the third tone as loud as possible so it's easier to hear when it disappears. Having followed this thread many times over the past decade, I'm becoming convinced that some people have a very hard time hearing more than one tone at a time. Even minor QRM on a CW signal stops them cold unless they can filter it out in the receiver. For such people hearing the third tone is probably very difficult or impossible. Many of us OTs have for years used very broad receivers on CW and learned long ago to listen to several signals at once, picking out the one we want to copy just as one picks out one conversation out of many in a crowded room. Perhaps what we're seeing today is a side effect of modern receivers where listening through real QRM is almost unknown. 73, Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tommy Alderman Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 1:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Zero beat Nooooooooooo! If you served on an aircraft carrier for three years, with Navy jets literally landing on a 13-inch thick steel deck just seven feet above your bed, there are a LOT of things you cannot hear anymore and matching audio tones is one of them!! There are exception to every "One can easily....."! 73, Tom - W4BQF ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
