[time-nuts] If there a FAQ

[Charles P. Steinmetz]

Hal wrote:

>How do you get down to "a couple Hz"?  I thought most (young?) ears dropped
>out at about 20 Hz and I expect lots of radios chop off more than that just
>to get rid of noise.

Beating of the received carrier and the oscillator being calibrated 
results in full or partial cancellation of the composite carrier -- 
in effect, a locally-generated carrier fade and augmentation.  You 
hear the band noise and sideband distortion rise and fall as the 
composite carrier falls and rises.  Easy enough to hear beats a 
minute long or more if band conditions are decent and you have the 
oscillator injection level reasonably matched to the received carrier 
level (though not so easy to quantify precisely by ear due to the 
difficulty of identifying the exact minima or maxima).

Best regards,

Charles