Ham Radio Myths

I especially like the "bold" comment.

Attention all NCTs, as sub-members of our "fraternity", you must speak only when spoken too, and opinions shall be withheld in the presence of your superiors or else harsh punishment shall be inflicted upon you for your insolence. How DARE YOU be so BOLD as to have an opinion and voice it amongst the superior ranks of this land. A GOOD NCT is a QUIET NCT who keeps his mouth shut and operates in the shadows, carefull not to offend the sensitivities of his masters. A decree shall be put forth from this day hence, that all insolent NCTs will endure 40 lashes if they as much as make eye contact with those who art superior by virtue of Gods holy "fist" bestowing the CW attributes only a true nobleman shall obtain.

Good countrymen of the RF Kingdom, do these truths not speak for themselves? Let us all cast rods upon these peasants with God's wrath if an opinion is spoken hence forth!!


Now, having poked my fun, shouldn't the original intent of this thread be restored?

Here is my suggestion for a Myth, though I am not sure if it is a myth or not. At some point I heard, or was told, that if water is poured around a ground rod of a grounded antenna, that it will perform better. I don't know if there is any scientific evidence that this is true, but it is something I heard on one or two occasions.

 

I heard one:

Someone said ANY topic started here will eventually turn into the old argument about code / no code. Any truth to this one? LOL.

73'
Frank.

 

Did Marconi Myth it?

Marconi used medium wave radio on 366 metres (820 kHz) in 1901 for the first trans-atlantic contact at St. John's, Newfoundland, receiving a radio test signal transmitted by his high-powered spark transmitter station at Poldhu, Cornwall, England. Or did he?


Bonnie Crystal KQ6XA

 

oh oh, bonnie is here. myth carefully guys....hey, the FAT TIRE BEER, is great, and the CW is soothing to my soul.

 

Here a two equipment realted stories. I have heard them over the course of my ham career but have never been able to track them down.

1. Back around 1969/1970 the Swan company produced a radio called the Swan 1011. It looked kind of like a modified Swan Cygnet of the same time period. This was marketed as a 10 meter transceiver with the added bonus of 11 meter receive AND another added bonus of a simple mod that allowed transmit on 11 meters. Initially Swan was advertising the 1011 in QST. This got a lot of ARRL members in an uproar. Now here comes the myth (or truth)..... The ARRL felt that they had to do something about this, and the end result was that Swan would not be able to advertise it in QST AND if the continued to produce it, No Swan advertising would be allowed in QST. In the end Swan set up a seperate company called Siltronix which ultimately produced and marketed the Siltronix 1011 and all was right with the world.

The evidence for it being a myth:

Swan was spending a lot of advertising dollars with the ARRL and I can not believe that they would walk away from it as well as threaten a very loyal advertiser with a ban.

The evidence for it not being a myth:

For a number of years CB radios were advertised quite a bit in QST and Hammarlund produced a receiver that also had an 11 meter transmitter in it (HQ-105 I think) and it was advertised in QST at the time it was produced and no one was complaining.

Myth 2:

When Collins produced the 75-A4 they did not initially include an antenna trimmer control which was a standard feature on almost all ham receivers of the period. The story was the the A4 did not need one. Collins was getting some complaints about it from hams and decided to add the trimmer in order to make the hams happy.

I have no evidence either way.


73
George
K3UD

 

It is fully true that such statements as this one:
"MYTH:
The learning & regular use of Morse Code always produces a better quality, more intelligent, more mannerly, and just all around better operator. Hence the term "REAL HAM" which is another myth. '

ARe always made by underacheivers that have a tech ticket and aspire to no more. How is it they think that they know what a "Ham" actually is? They have not been there.

 

Can we get off the code vs. no-code BS & get back to the subject of the post? - Sheesh, enough already!

 

Hmmmm...

I thought it was that ANY topic started here would eventually turn into League bashing because we all know that the folks in Newington don't have a clue as to what is really going on!

 

I second that!!

 

KE5FRF,
Those are your words as far as "sub members"--NOT
mine.
I have found from my experience there ARE good techs,
both "code" and NCT`s.
I have ALSO found "good" and "bad" in extra`s and
generals, and even "advanced".
BUT I will say it`s much more common nowaday`s
for a newcomer to "think" he knows it all, than it
it was for the newcomer of years ago,(who by the
way WAS called a novice).
Man, if you call someone a "novice" nowadays, you
are considered an "elitest".

 

Why do all the floresent lights in my shop light up and blink while I'm sending cw with my amp on???

Maybe not a myth, but awful mysterious to me....

remember:
without CW, it's only CB........

 

Yep, that's a myth - because of the word "always".

---

Some more myths:

"Nobody builds their own rigs anymore"

"Equipment prices are outrageous" (compared to
what rigs cost 10/20/30/40/50 years ago, they're
inexpensive when adjusted for inflation)

"All [license class] are [anything]"

"ARRL forced incentive licensing/open question pools on us"

"Hams once had exclusive use of all of the spectrum shorter than 200 meters"

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

I think we have been hijacked.

Where are the marshalls when you need them

73
George
K3UD

 

What a great show! I love even watching reruns 5 or 10 times.

 

Nobody really knows.

Marconi claimed to have heard the Poldhu signal from Newfoundland on December 12, 1901 - at local noon or thereabouts. Various reports give the wavelength as anywhere from 3000 meters to somewhere in the present BC band.

But Marconi could not hear Poldhu with a tuned receiver - only with an untuned one. The Poldhu transmitter wasn't exactly designed for modern levels of harmonic reduction, so it is very possible that what Marconi heard was a harmonic of Poldhu and not the fundamental. If he really was on 366 meters, the harmonics would be 183 meters, 122 meters, 91.5 meters, 61 meters, 45.75 meters, etc. It's quite possible that one or more of these was heard rather than the fundamental.

It's also possible to speculate on whether Marconi really heard Poldhu at all. Midday in a sunspot minimum isn't the best DX time for any wavelength, and with the kind of equipment Marconi was using the results are unpredictable. More important, there were no witnesses or other confirmation besides Marconi's own reports.

In any event, it was not long after December 1901 that reliable transatlantic radio communication was demonstrated without any doubts.

Fessenden had a 2 way *voice* transatlantic system working by November 1906.


73 de Jim, N2EY