SSB strips out the carrier and one of the two sidebands of an AM signal, leaving only the part that carries information. The result puts far more of your transmitter’s power into something the other station can actually hear.
The convention is lower sideband on 160, 80 and 40 meters, and upper sideband on 20 meters and up. Nobody remembers why; it is simply what everyone does, and following it means people can find you.
SSB sounds odd until your ear adjusts — voices are unnatural and a little harsh, and a mistuned signal sounds like a cartoon duck. That is normal.
At a Glance
- Category
- Phone
- Bandwidth
- 2.4–2.8 kHz
- What you need
- A microphone. Most HF radios do SSB out of the box
- Where to listen
- Upper portions of each HF band. Lower sideband below 10 MHz, upper sideband above