That's certainly better than my best DX with a light bulb, which was around 4 or 5 miles if I recall.
At the time, I had a Globe Scout 65B transmitter and a National NC109 receiver, which was incredibly deaf above 10 MHz - to the point where I though 20 meters was something like 1296 MHz where you scheduled a contact across town by telephone and hoped for the best. When I see gear of the era at a swap and shop, it brings back mixed memories - good ones for being a newly licensed teen age ham in the early 1960's and bad one when I think of the drift, poor sensitivity and selectivity of much of the equipment of the era. Jack K8ZOA wayne burdick wrote: > Jack, > > I once worked Illinois from California on 15 meters using a 60-W light > bulb fed with three feet of zipcord. At that time (age 13) my shack was > a 4' x 5' pool-equipment closet in the garage. The bulb was mounted on > a shelf, pulling the zip cord straight up and taut -- a "short > vertical." > > The rig was a Heath DX20. What I wouldn't have given for a K3 :) > > 73, > Wayne > N6KR > > > On Jun 7, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Jack Smith wrote: > > >> In the days of vacuum tube transmitters, we commonly used a 100 watt >> incandescent light bulb as a dummy load. It has the advantage of giving >> an immediate indication of output power. And, because the usual >> arrangement was to use a few feet of zip cord between the transmitter >> and bulb, one could easily work a couple miles with the "dummy" antenna >> > > >> --- >> > > http://www.elecraft.com > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
