Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1497

I don't wqnt to get into long techical arguments here1, but a single audio sinewave2 injected into a SSB transmitter produces a single RF frequency identical in very respect with one produced by an RF oscillator on the same frequency. A number of transmitters, commercial and military, have used this method for generating a CW signal, and from the receiving end you can't tell the difference from a straight CW transmitter.

Basically it works like this: A keyed audio tone, say 1KHz, is mixed with the SSB carrier oscillator on, say, 9MHz usually in a balanced modulator. This produces frequencies of 9.001MHz and 8.999MHz, plus a small amount of residual carrier on 9MHz. The carrier and one sideband, let's say the 8.999MHz one, are filtered out (byt the normal SSB filter) leaving one frequency, in our case 9.001MHz which is indistinguishable from a 9.001MHz CW signal produced by any other means.

Straight AM would be a different matter, of course, that would generate Modulated Carrier Wave, MCW, as used by the British Army on several sets.

1 Not non-computer related anyway :-) 2 It needs to be a pure sinewave, of course, otherwise other unwanted frequencies are produced as well. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com (Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.)

The future was never like this!