Like many developments in "radio", Amateurs led the way with some Hams
tinkering with SSSC (single sideband suppressed carrier) long before WWII.
(One reference I've seen reports on-air Amateur experiments in 1933.)
Also, like much of "radio technology" the basics were understood long before
that. In the case of SSSC the understanding appears to go back to the first
detailed analysis of amplitude-modulated signals about 1915.
And, like so many things, the understanding preceded the technology needed
to make it practical.
Hams, not being necessarily practical folks, pursued its use on the bands
well before it was adopted for general commercial and military use. I think
Villard at the Stanford University Amateur Radio club is credited (blamed?)
for launching the Amateur SSB revolution on 75 meters about 1947 that
brought Amateur use of SSB into the mainstream. It's likely the wall-to-wall
heterodynes on the 'phone' bands caused by the huge increase in Hams on the
air in the 1950's were a powerful inducement. Imagine a dozen, strong
key-down CW carriers, all within 2 kHz of each, other producing a howl of
multiple heterodynes on top of several weaker phone signals and you have an
idea of what a typical "phone" band sounded like in the busy evening hours
back then. Multiple notch filters were seldom enough to copy anything out of
the cacophony.
At that time SSB's general use required the development of adequately-stable
receivers and transmitters. I recall reading several engineering journals in
the 1950's reporting that they doubted sufficiently stable oscillators would
*ever* be developed so the signals could be received by non-technical
operators in the military and commercial services.
That changed very quickly.
My point is that Hams evolved their own "standards" for whatever reason
before SSB was in general use by other services, so it is the other services
who failed to follow the established "standards" on the Ham bands, not the
other way around.
But, then again, there's no more reason for commercial or military users to
follow what Hams do than there is for Hams to follow what the commercial and
military users do.
Indeed, since a large part of Amateur radio is experimenting and try out
things just because they interest someone, there's a lot of excellent
reasons not to follow military and commercial standards.
Granted, failing to follow commercial practice drives the pure "operators" a
bit nuts because they can't buy any old "plug-'n-play" rig designed for
commercial or military work and do what other Hams are doing.
But *not* copying what the other services are doing is the point of Amateur
radio for many. It's why Villard launched the SSB "revolution" in the first
place.
Ron AC7AC
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