Q I have always worked CW, until I went mobile. Because I drive a stick shift, it is hard to do CW while driving the hills of Pennsylvania (although it can be done). I thought that I would give SSB a chance, but I am having trouble tuning the signals for clarity. I think I am not tuning properly because I have difficulty getting a signal that I can understand, and when I do, I turn out to be way off their receive frequency. Can you give me some pointers?
A The best tuning of an SSB signal is accomplished by tuning from the high pitch to the low. I’ll explain. As you know, on 160, 80, and 40 meters, lower sideband is used and on the higher bands, upper sideband is the norm. Let’s use 20 meters as an example.
Set your rig for 20-meters and upper sideband. Tune down to the lower end of the 20-meter phone band (14.150 MHz) and slowly tune up in frequency. You will soon hear a highpitched squeaky voice. Keep tuning slowly and you will hear the pitch become lower and lower. Soon it will become intelligible, but still too high. Keep on tuning up and the voice will eventually sound natural. There, you’ve done it!
If you continue tuning up, the voice will become lower and lower until it sounds like a 45 RPM record played at 33 RPM, then it will become unintelligible again.
On the bands that use lower sideband, the process is reversed. You start at the upper portion of the band and tune down slowly. The voices will go from the squeaky down to intelligible speech.
From QST March 2001
