Eton Elite Executive True Single Sideband?

[majoco]

It has been my experience that a lot of less experienced radio listeners don't really understand how SSB works.

Agreed. Quite a few years ago, I was foolish enough to join an AM Sunday morning net - just low powered stuff on 80m. The topic got round to this new-fangled SSB and how could it be resolved on a 'normal' ham band receiver - most of us were still using 'separates' with analogue tuning and a logging scale so you only had a reference number on a scale to tell you what frequency you were on - approximately. Many of the net members didn't understand about 'how do you tune a signal that has no carrier' and didn't like the mickey mouse voices. Even now on a net you hear that they don't use the RIT to tune the other station - they use the main tuning control and so change their transmit frequency too - the whole net chases each other!

 

[GB46]

During my ham days in the 1960s very few people I heard on the air had VFOs, and when you called CQ you had to tune around for a reply, so that your transmitter and receiver were on different frequencies during a QSO. This was on 2 meters. I always transmitted in AM mode (didn't have anything else available), and my transmitter was always on the same frequency, 145.026 MHz, as I had just one crystal. I had bought a couple more, but they were defective. At any rate, people who knew me also knew just where to find me; it was like having a single email address.

SSB was something I knew nothing about back then. Transmissions from the U.S. Andrews Air Force base were easy to pick up, including communications with Air Force One, but unreadable for me. I could have clarified them had I simply switched on and adjusted the BFO. Instead, I thought I was listening to scrambled messages, but discovered later that they were in the clear.