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RANGE: SSB vs AM

H

Highland Ranger

Active Member
Aug 28, 2005
141
9
28
Two questions:

AM uses carrier

SSB pumps all the wattage into modulation

COnsidering the legal 4 watts Vs 12, which gets out further?

Also, if using a little amplification, are there any rules of thumb that hold true - like SSB goes 4 times further than AM

amd 100 watts of amp on AM vs 100 watts of amp on SSB can get you x more miles type of thing
 

I can not remember anytime were AM out talked SSB or talked further. You add more watts to either situation it will talk futher on both ,but I think SSB will win everytime two fold....IM not sure if that helps or not ? but it's almost as if you kind of answered your own question. (-:
 
SSB the superior mode.
Click to expand...
I agree.
Normal AM transmissions include a carrier signal, the upper sideband USB and lower sideband LSB.

About half of the transmitters output is used to transmit the carrier, then you have to modulate both sidebands.

With SSB, you remove one sideband, and toss out the carrier signal, This allows you to cram the same amount of power into the remaining sideband.

Another thing is that the difference in frequency from the bottom of the lower sideband to the top of the upper sideband is called the bandwidth.

Because this is smaller(read more narrow) when using SSB the radio hears less noise.

A 10 W SSB transmitter is almost as effective as a 100 W AM transmiter when you add it all up.
73
Jeff
 
like Shock said ,10 watts is like 100 watts on SSB where 100 watts on AM already is , so say you had 100 watts on AM and switched to SSB , then it might be like 1000 watts on SSB , kind of sorta but not really , you confused yet ? (-: he used the word effenciency or almost effective , it's just a mo better type situation all the way around.
 
A tenfold increase is a bit much. Maybe four of five. 150W would get me all over on SSB, it took alot more to get out on AM. That's partially due to the nature of 11M AM. It's survival of the strong. SSB is a bit less competitive. You can hear more than one station at the same time, no hetradyne.
 
i would say it is not a ten fold eqivilant..
more like 4 or 5 fold is proper..

it is much easier on ssb..
as said before..one can hear easily more than one person at a time..

Later
 
SSB is just more efficient-- like Audioshockwave mentioned-- the key is bandwidth-- Hams that want really good DX TX will switch to a narrower bandwidth-- its not as loud or good sounding, but it makes the signal travel further
The narrower the bandwidth the better it is for DX
 
Highland Ranger: these guys are all giving you alot of good info here. Whether you stay on AM or if you move to Single Side Band should "NOT" be determined by how how much power you can use, you can do very well with just a few watts on "SSB", it depends on what kind of talking you want to do. Like alot of other SSB-Operators I started out on AM, the reason I made the switch was because of all of the trash-talk and the power-wars that were happening on the AM channels "in this area". I'm not saying that all "AMers" are bad, I still talk on a couple of AM channels once in a while. On "SSB" it seems to be a totally different atmosphere "in this area" the people are more courtious toward each other and you don't seem to have hash and trash that is on AM. It all depends on what you want to do on radio, just figure it out and enjoy. 73 Jim
 
Been using SSB for comm with folks I know from the mobile and then hanging around on AM and jumping in from the base.

Can't say I notice that much difference in range from AM to SSB. Maybe 25% further or so . . . . . but it could be the terrain.

Definately goes further than AM . . . . . and channels are a bit more private.
 
am groundwave 12 watts pep and i can do over 70 miles as long as there is no skip.
 

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