One part of Amateur Radio is transmitting and receiving. Another part
of Amateur Radio is design and construction of equipment. Yet another
is delving into the concepts of doing things with available
equipment/methods. Traffic handling was once a big activity ... think
"American Radio RELAY League" ... it's now an anachronism but a few of
us still dabble in it. Amateur Radio is a big tent [to plagarize from
the world of politics], there's room for everyone.
73,
Fred K6DGW
- Sparks NV DM09dn
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the Cal QSO Party 7-8 Oct 2017
- www.cqp.org
On 12/18/2016 10:09 AM, Emory Schley wrote:
Hi Guys;
I really don't mean to show my ignorance, but all this talk about
calibration and power out is good up to a point, but if your signal
is off the mark by a couple Hertz, does it really make any REAL WORLD
difference? Even when running PSK31 surely you can be off the "beam"
a Hertz or two or three, maybe more– and you'll still have rock solld
communications.
One fellow seemed unhappy with a rig putting out "only" 80 watts
instead of the full 100, but there is no way the ham on the other end
of the QSO is going to detect the "deficit". It pretty much boils
down to "Can he hear me" and "Can I hear him"? If the answer is yes
to both questions, then all the rest is just fodder for textbooks and
endless discussion/arguing.
I know engineers and wannabe engineers want absolute accuracy. I'm no
fan of sloppiness myself, BUT if you actually consider what you're
dealing with along with the vagaries of propagation, then "close
enough" should be good enough for anyone. If the tool (the
radio/antenna system, in this case) is good enough to get the job
done, then isn't that "good enough," period?
I really don't wish to start any in-fighting here, and I freely admit
I'm not technologically competent enough to sustain my opinions in
any absolute way in a technical discussion, but really, instead of
wasting so much time slicing hairs, wouldn't you really rather be on
the air instead, having fun? I would. :-)
Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah/Have a Good Day (Take your pick),
Emory Schley N4LP
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