Experience with Single-Sideband Mobile Equipment

An experimental vhf single-sideband equipment used for performance comparison with narrow-band fm equipment is described. Problems associated with transmitter design, transmitter power, speech compression, pilot carrier recovery, sideband detection, agc response time, and ignition noise suppression are discussed. A laboratory comparison and a field comparison of the SSB equipment and the fm equipment indicates that for comparable size equipment utilizing the same final amplifier tube, an equal service range can be obtained.