[ADXA] 160m DXing in the "old days"... Got my DXCC in 1980. VHF chasing.

[Sandy Hutson]

My 160m DXCC # 18 was signed by Harry Dannals, W2HD as President and W1XX John Lindholm, 40 years ago in December 1980. If Harry is still living he would be in his mid 90s in age!  I have 215 confirmed on 160m, a low # compared to other ADXA members and just wished I had a decent 1.8mc antenna after moving in town in 1995. 

I basically chased one here and there these past few  years and have only confirmed 7 new ones since early 2018, 3 years ago. No antenna now on 1.8, sorry to say. Sure have good memories of the 70s through mid 90s with good shunt fed towers and ½ wave rotatable slopers as an antennas. A “T” antenna worked well too, fed at bottom with only 4 radials but a good ground rod is all anyone needed with the “T”. An inverted L was used a lot in 1974-76 in Hot Springs.

Years ago several of us used regular telephones or a fixed secret 75m SSB frequency to notify each other of “middle of the night” schedules or having just worked one, mainly helped with EU, AF and SA QSOs. Many I worked on 160m were moved there after an 80m QSO (1977-83)…  Two years after 1980, MANY stations were working 100 on 1.8mc in a year or so after getting on the band, mainly due to propagation changes.. No emails or cellphones back then. A single ding on a friend’s house phone told someone to go to the “secret” frequency. Did not want to wake up the wives! Then that person called other close friends. A cobweb of calling going on. Some of the participants were me, W1BB, KV4FZ, N4WW, W4QCW, W8LRL and others. 

FT8 has surely helped 160m DXCC chasers and also many DXers on 80m. Times a changing they say! 6m DXCC was a bit harder in some ways, varying in 11 year cycles, etc. I always wanted the low band 1.8 and high band 50.1 DXCCs to have ‘em on both ends of our main DXing bands.
Regards to all our ADXA DX chasers and a special congrats to those who have high totals on so many of our 10 main bands. 

A real “bugger” was chasing DXCC on 144mc. My total there ended at 29 (Cuba in Nov. 1996), but I had to use EME except for VE and XE. Joel and others, I am sure, have some DX worked on bands 222 and up. The antenna requirements are so demanding to set up and use of EME is a necessity. 
San YY


Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Jay Bromley

Hi Trent,
Congrats to George!!

I will agree it is a big deal!  The DXCC’s I value the most are 160m and 80m.  Those were before FT8, hi.  Mostly all CW.  If I can find the certificate I think my 160m DXCC had Joel’s signature on it.  So that makes it even cooler.  😊

You make it, just stay at the bottom of the band and hunt!  Verticals rule the lower bands!!

73 de jay/w5jay..


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