And don't forget Stew's hand typed and duplicated 160m bulletins, usually sent out with a personal handwritten note of encouragement. Roger G3RBP/VE3ZI and I kept it going for a few years after Stew passed away.
Don G3XTT On 6 Jan 2016 19:11, "Tom W8JI" <w...@w8ji.com> wrote: > I remember this stuff well from the early 1960's. I got my feet wet in 160 > because it was a hotbed for local mobile and ragchew activity in the Great > Lakes area. > > Stew, W1BB, was "famous" on 160 because Stew was the main organizer and > main promoter of all 160 DX work, including trans-Atlantic tests. > > The trans-Atlantic tests were on weekends during DX season, generally at > Europe sunrise Sunday mornings 0500Z-0730Z on "Saturday midnight" USA, > where USA stations called CQ on the first and odd 5 minutes and Europe and > DX CQ the second and even 5 minutes working split. This was because of > LORAN, USA could not transmit above 1825 and Europe below 1825. There were > other tests, but these were the popular ones. > > Stew also led in the DX chase toward 100 countries, which was very > difficult back then because antennas were poor, equipment poor, and power > levels severely limited. 160 was limited to as little as 25 watts dc plate > input power in certain band sections and hours, which was maybe 12 watts > output. (In 1983 Amateur power measurements changed to RF output power, > instead of power amplifier DC input power.) > > There were several very active DX'ers on the east coast in the early > 1960's, some calls were W1HGT, W2EQS, and W2IU, with W8FPU and W8GDQ > active from Ohio. > > It was an entirely different world in the 1960's because of technology, > LORAN mandated band segments (25kc wide in the USA), and power levels. > > Police and radio location used the area between 1600-1800 kc/s, I used to > listen to the Cincinatti police at night on an opened up AM BC receiver > around year 1960. The Great Lakes was also full of radio navigation > transmitters in the area below 1800 and above the upper end of the AM band > at 1600 kc/s. > > 73 Tom > _________________ > Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband > _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband