FCC Report and Order Posted on New Rules

But again, you are missing the point. These are NOT states. Call them packets, constructs, whatever. They are NOT 'states'.

As you yourself said, they are an 'implementation' of the states and are used to convey data. You cannot try to define the 'whole' with the definition of one of the 'pieces'.

 

The question is if you are in favor of testing one mode how about a seperate test for all the other modes?

 

Morse binary stated:

1 = key closed
0 = key opened

dit = 1
dah = 111
space between characters = 0
space between letters = 00
space between words = 000

73 = 1110111010101001010101110111

Morse 5 state digital

dit = 1
dah = 2
character space = 3
letter space = 4
word space = 5

73 = 11222311122

The binary state could also be coded

dit = 00
dah = 01
letter space = 10
word space = 11

no character space would be needed. (2 bit per byte binary digital?)

73 = 0000010101100101010000

There are so many ways to send Morse with digits I would say that it is indeed digital.

 

Anything analog can be represented as digital but everything isn't digital now is it? Take music. It can be made into digital. Take MP3's or CD's. Even your voice can be coverted to digital. Look at the new rigs coming out that have digital voice. You guy trying to prove that morse is digital is pointless because anything can be made to be digital or binary.

 

Your voice or music are analog. Code is digital. You can send code as on/off or as level shift or frequency shift. You only have to have two positions and a time domain to get code sent. The FCC classifies CW as digital, and anyone who understands the difference between analog and digital will classify it as digital.

The fact that analog signals can be converted to digital doesn't make the original media "digital". But code is never truly "analog", since there is no variation of the signal as in voice or music. It is just a switch, turning something on or off. Your porch light is digital in nature, it would be analog if it had a dimmer on it, and you moved it through different brightness levels.

Joe

 

Me again (probably gonna say something annoying)

Couple of points here, for all "sides" of this debate:

Attempting to discuss whether CW is a "digital mode" or not is irrelevant to this discussion. To some people, "CW" is not just about on-off key sequences in International Morse Code -- rather, it's the all-precious "filter" to keep out the "wrong" kind of people. Theoretical knowledge is meaningless to these people. It's all about what WPM of test they passed (even though I'd wager that a sizeable proportion of these people probably haven't used CW in months -- if not years. These people can posture all theyw ant about this being the "end of an era", but in the end it's the same old, tired rhetorical tricks used by members of "restricted" clubs when the management allowed the "wrong" type of people in (think Blacks in formerly all-white country clubs, for example.)

The suggestion about making certain licenses non-renewable is, quite frankly, idiotic, and counter-productive in the extreme. The primary reason it's counterproductive is that it makes the process of "upgrading" an END IN ITSELF -- rather than what it should be: a MEANS to larger frequency privileges. Additionally (as I said before), those who are whimpering about "unearned benefits" -- ESPECIALLy if they have "elite" licence classes such as Avanced and Extra --- are the heirs to 'incentive licensing, and are permitted exclusive sub-bands which could only be done by essentially ROBBING (formerly) duly-licenced General Class operators. I'll wager that none of those "elite" Advanced/Extra class folks back in 1968 protested when the band-plans were twisted in their favor to give THEM what amounted to an "unearned" benefit --- at the direct and obvious expense of any General Class operator at the time.

So, let's just have some perspective here:

1. The sanctimonious "end of an era" doomsaying, bad "chickenband" jokes, inane suggestions in regard to upgrading being an end in itself are all (very) thinly-disguised power-tripping.

2. Present-day Advanced/Extra class operators are the heir to a spectrum-restructuring that was far more "unearned" than the present situation could possibly be, because the situation today did NOT involve depriving anybody of anything. (In case anybody wants to check, CW is the ONLY mode allowed in ALL frequencies. All the other modes are restricted to specitif sub-bands. So the expansion of the SSB sub-band means only that CW AND NOW SSB can be legally operated on those freqs. It does NOT mean that CW operators have "lost" anything.)

3. If CW ops are so convinced of it's efficiency relative to other modes, they they should be MORE than happy to have some new SSB stufff to compete against -- think of it as a challgenge

Just my two cents.

 

Actually, you're confused about 'states'. It isn't "states" that makes a code N-ary, it's 'symbols', and no matter how you cut it, Morse has five symbols.

You're also confusing the state of the transmitter with the states of the state machine that sends the code. You'll find that state machine to be failry large -- it contains a subset state machine for each character in the code as well as for intraword and interword space.

By the way, I'm not "missing" your point. Your point is that you wish to call anything that can be represented in binary a "binary" system. That's not how systems are labled. Decimal is a 10-ary system because it has 10 symbols: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. It doesn't matter that I can encode decimal in binary ala

0 = 0000
1 = 0001
2 = 0010
3 = 0011

and so on, decimal is not binary.

Similarly, Morse has the five symbols I listed, and is, indeed, 5-ary.

 

Actually it did. General class licensees lost quite a bit. Read the R&O.

 

Not correct either.  CW is squeezed into an ever-smaller portion of the band.  The loss is small, because of data taking most of the loss, but it is loss nontheless.  

And data modes lost more on 80 than CW did.  They are the ones that should be complaining, IMO.

But so be it. The FCC feels that SSB deserves more spectrum space than data and has so ruled. We must work with what we are given.

 

IMHO the first form is the right form to display what CW is, it is simular to async serial with stop bits, parity bits and databits, just look at rs232, it is the clasic exsample of a async serial protocoll operating in a simular way as CW.

 

I lost some CW space. Who cares. I gained more SSB which is what I use more anyways. I consider this as a gain not a loss. I don't use CW at all so to me this was a good thing.

 

I think we're getting close here!!

Following this discussion has led me to think about what we mean by a "digital mode", specifically the "digital" part. Is it the nature of the information to be transmitted, the nature of the intermediate encoding steps, or the properties of the transmission channel?

I'll start with A1A telegraphy, good old CW.

The source material is a limited set of text characters (no case distinction, usually no fancy punctuation). Basically, you have letters, numbers, some punctuation, and the inter-word space. The symbol set is finite and discrete, i.e. there's no symbol "between" A and B, so the source material qualifies as digital.

Now we encode some more. Each letter is converted into a sequence of one or more "elements", known to us all as dit and dah. But there's a complication: because the encoding is of variable length, we need a way to tell that a chararacter has ended and a new one is about to begin. So we introduce the inter-character space. We now have converted about 43 commonly used symbols to four symbols (dit, dah, inter-character space, inter-word space). This encoding is still finite and discrete, so this is digital.

But wait, there's more! We haven't generated a signal yet, because we haven't modified any properties of nature; we can't convey information. In A1A we do this by turning a carrier on and off in a previously agreed manner, and we sample the channel to determine whether the carrier is on or not. What is this "previously agreed manner"? It involves the type of change in the physical world, and the relative timing of those changes. In A1A we define a "unit time interval (UTI)", and we say a dit is carrier on for one UTI, a dash is carrier on for three UTIs, inter-character space is carrier off for three UTIs, etc.

Here's where I deviate from commonly held wisdom, but with good reason, I believe. If a dit is carrier on for one UTI, what do three consecutive dits sound like? Isn't this the same as one dah? How do you tell the difference? If you define the inter-element space as one UTI carrier off, and you require that all elements be sent with a trailing inter-element space, you're not really sending a string of dits anymore. If the element needs a trailing space to be identified, why not make it part of the element?

If we use this approach, we can avoid the inter-element space entirely and do a final encoding before generating a signal:

dit = 1 x UTI on, 1 x UTI off
dah = 3 x UTI on, 1 x UTI off
inter-character space = 2 x UTI off
inter-word space = 6 x UTI off

These four symbols can now be encoded into two symbols, carrier on/off, mark/space, whatever. The code has two discrete states, which makes this a binary code.

I think much confusion arises from the fact that the human ear/brain combination is such an effective time-adaptive detector. Baudot, ASCII and other binary codes are similar to CW in that they are binary and use a UTI for detection timing. They differ in that the machinery used to detect RTTY and ASCII requires that the code contain explicit synchronization bits (start/stop bits). All the brain needs is to hear one dit and one dah and it locks in pretty quickly and can adapt to changes in speed with great agility. But if you look in the Handbook (figure 9-13 in the 2006 edition, I think) you see a state change diagram of CW, PSK31, Baudot, etc and you realize that if one of them is digital, then all must be. And then you go crazy.

 

Because the purpose for my including elmering was not to take up time, but to get old-timers and newcomers to working together. Both can learn. The newcomers have something to teach us OTs about using our computers, and we OTs have a lot to teach the newcomers about operating, and following established conventions, as well as basic radio. And a whole lot more from each, those are just examples.

But first we have to get both groups to listening to each other. That was my purpose.

 

Those who operate CW.

 

At last!

No more Morse tests.

I passed my 20 wpm, but I'm still happy it's all over. My XYL will be upgrading now, but that's not the only reason.

I hope now all the arguing will soon be over.

I think that CW testing has really damaged the hobby, and I hope we can salvage some interest in our hobby by all those who have been put off by it, although I think most of them gave up even the idea of transmitting on HF in favour of the Internet.

Let's all get off the net and back on the bands. Make that a New Year's resolution.

Happy New Year de N3KIP