I love walking down 160 memory lane. I add to Tom's list of Stew contributions to 160 DXhis bulletins he sent out to DX'ers world wide promoting 160 and the transatlantic tests. I'll never forget getting a phone call around midnight one transatlantic test night; it was Stewcongratulating me for being heard in Europe. He knew it was my first crossing and didn't wantto wait for the next bulletin to congratulate me! I was really excited and when he put the phone by the speaker, I also heard my first European DX that night. Stew had just completed 160 DXCC when I first visited him in person. The ARRL would not recognize his accomplishment and it hurt him badly. Adding to your list Tom was W9PNE, K1PBW,W8ANO, and WA8IJI. --------------------------------------------------------- Greg Chartrand - W7MY Richland, WA. W7MY Home Page: http://webpages.charter.net/w7my/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------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. _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband