[AMRadio] Zero beating


Jim Candela jcandela at prodigy.net
Mon Oct 16 16:19:40 EDT 2006



>Brian w5ami says:

>Zero beating is just one way we could improve relations with SSB ops,
>and ourselves...


Reply by Jim, WD5JKO

   One nice thing about the Central electronics 20A is the 'CAL' position. In this mode, you spot the VFO to the received signal, and there is enough RF output to drive a frequency counter. This is done without keying the TR relay. There also is a level control so you can better match the transmitter VFO spotting level to the received signal level. This way an S-5 signal can be zeroed to just as well as an S9+40 signal. The VFO operates continuously and is beat against a 9 Mhz crystal. Keeping the VFO running, and out of band is pretty nice. My VFO, a CE modified BC-458 drifts down about 300hz from a cold start (80m).

The biggest problem I have in a round table is knowing who to zero beat. Then when the long skip comes in, and I am talking local, I often find that zeroing to the long skip signal helps ease the local copy. If we "channelized" say every 5 Khz, then we would all know what frequency we should be on, i.e., 3880, 85, 90, etc.

No 100% answers for all situations...


Regards,
Jim






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