thanx KF5WRE

Lid = poor operator.

It actually comes from pre ham days when a poor telegrapher would remove the lid from a Prince Albert can and put it on the sounder to make it easier to hear. It is also the origin of the term 'tin ear'.

Took this a couple weekends ago at the Railroad Museum. Not sure why it would be connected to "poor operating" procedures if its just an aide.







 

The reason for that, in a railroad station, which was also the telegraph office in those days, there were two sounders (the click-clack part of the telegraph, the other being the key).

The voltage on the wire on the poles was necessarily high, and the longer the distance, the higher the voltage.  The incoming wires from the pole lead to a "Mainline Sounder" and a relay.  The Mainline Sounder was wound with a high impedance to handle the high voltage from the telegraph wires, often 30 - 120 ohms, sometimes higher, I've seen up to 400 ohms, depending on the voltage at that point along the lines.  The Mainline Sounder would alert the telegraph operator to an incoming message.

When that happened, a relay would also operate, and send a low voltage (about 1 volt) signal to the "Local Sounder" also in the office.  The Mainline sounder and relay worked off the power on the telegraph lines, but the local sounder worked from a 1 volt "gravity cell", which was basically a glass jar (like a mason jar) and two metal electrodes, some copper sulfate solution.  To save the battery that was usually turned off except when working incoming traffic for that station.  Remember, the same lines and thus, the same signals were present throughout the entire line from office to the end.  All of the Mainline Sounders were clicking away.

The Local Sounder was easier to hear, and to make it distinctive the tobacco tin tucked behind it in the "resonator" box would give it a different sound.  A Local Sounder might have an impedance of only 4 ohms or so.  There might be more than one sounder, and line coming into an office from different directions.

But that's the reason for the tin.

Most importantly........YOU don't want to be labeled as one.

I don't know either, as the practice was quite common, I understand.  But the can is not the lid.  That photos shows the "lid" of the can on the right side, and I had not seen that before, nor heard of it.  I had only heard of using the can to change the tone.

That is a "Mainline Sounder" in a "resonator".  The wood box (resonator) behind it focuses the sound like cupping your hand behind your ear to hear.  It is mounted on multiple swing arms that pivot around so that the operator can bring it near his ear to hear in a noisy station.

LID

Common terminology used in the 1960's and 1970's in the United States to describe approximately one ounce of marijuana.

(Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke") Let's go score a lid man.

a LID is a dipshit ham operator

It's the guy who still lives in mommy's basement, even though he has gray hair. ...the idiot who listens to every repeater 24/7 and feels the need to butt-in to every QSO with annoying bullshit that nobody wants to hear.

It's the guy who violates the DX Code Of Conduct every time.

It's the shithead who tunes up over the top of DX

..or calls over the top of DX even though the DX just told him " up 5"

....it's the guy who cranks up his PSK gain up so far that it screws up the entire band.


Hams say LID because the FCC doesn't want us saying FUCKING DUMBASS on  the air.




DX CODE OF CONDUCT
http://dx-code.org/english.htm

The DX CODE OF CONDUCT needs to add

"I will adhere to the Band Plans"

While we' re on the subject...


... many years ago a coworker told me that two question marks ?? meant much the same thing. Anyone else hear of this?

We have two "instruments" for dealing with lids: The Wouff Hong and the Rettysnitch:

I guess I really do not want to know what or where those implements are used for!

So what about digital guys running waaaay too much wattage?

Lots of guys on 20m today dumping 3 sets of harmonics and blanking everyone elses conversations.

Yeah I am looking at you IL QSO party folks.

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Not always someone running too much power. Sometime there is just a pipeline into certain area's, antenna gain is also part of it. The other part is RF gain, you kind of have to throttle it with digi modes. Are there are some operators using too much power... Sure. But most of the time when you see the harmonics, it is usually just a strong signal, RF gain is at max, and the audio chain and DSP's in the computer will create those artifacts. It is more or less a fundamental overload of the front end, and turning back the RF gain will help a ton. When that does not work entirely, I just rotate the notch filter and solve that problem.

There's your problem.... FIBs.

I singled them out cause 6 out of 6 stations I wrote down that were doing this were from that contest.

When I gave up and unplugged the antenna I was still able to copy the last one.

I'll fiddle with the knobs next time, but i unplugging doesn't kill it I doubt notch and beam dir will help.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

FIBs?

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FIB - F#$*&^% Illinois Brothers? More likely in context than Flying Inflatable Boats.

Nickname us cheeseheads have for those south of our border. WI hate people from IL.
Fib = Effing Illinois B@stard. FISHTAB = Efing Illinois Scheisse Head Towing A Boat.

There's the French, then there's Illinois.