[ADXA] Todays DX. 40 meters and a bit of history.

[Howard Patterson]

Randy,

I enjoyed your and Stan’s 40M DX musings. You both have had some amazing antennas for 40M.  My first QSO as a Novice in 1964 was on 40M CW.  I worked a station in New Jersy and I thought that was DX!  In 1967 I was working at the local mom and pop telephone company, PERCO (Perry County Telco).  I worked on a road widening/paving project on what is now AR-314 from Hollis to Onyx.  We were joint use on poles placed by First Electric Co-op.  We had a 50 pair cable and a half crossarm of open wire. I started the summer as a grunt…ground helper for the person on the pole.  I found an old pair of straight “hooks” in the garage at work and practiced climbing on the pole in our front yard.  After I demonstrated my climbing skills my foreman agreed to buy some new Klein offset hooks and lineman’s boot and take it out of my pay check. The owner spotted me climbing and gave me a 10cent/hr raise..$1.35!  At some point in the summer a 45ft pole became surplus and I dug a hole and used the pole truck to plant it in a meadow by my shack.  I found some old thin wall conduit and telescoped a 40M radiator. Used plastic water pipe for the feed point insulator and added four drooping radials.  The 40M GP was usable on 15M as well.  I did work some decent DX on 40 CW with my Eico 720/Heath VF-1 and Drake 2B plus a 4X811A amp that Bill, WA5AVO, helped me build.   First good wind we had bent the radiator over about 15degrees.  Couldn’t tell that it changed the pattern very much!  After four years in the Navy I came home to find that  my parents had sold the old house and 10 acres that my shack had been on.  The 45ft pole was also gone. 

 

One of my 15M CW DX QSOs with the GP was with Doc, GM5AFF, at a place called RAF Edzell on the east coast of Scotland.  That was in September, 1967.  I went in the Navy in October and after training I was a Seaman CT with orders for the Naval Security Group Activity at RAF Edzell, Scotland in August, 1968.  When I checked in at Edzell I asked about Doc (D R Kelly a Chief Radioman).  He had left a month before I got there.  He was on his way to support radio coms with Riverine operations in Vietnam (Swift Boats primarily).  Would have been a very cool eyeball QSO!

 

73,

Pat, W5VY

 

From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Randell Curtis, W5ZJ via ADXA
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2026 12:33 AM
To: adxa at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [ADXA] Todays DX. 40 meters and a bit of history.

 

 

Back in late 1974 I made my first contact ever on the 40 meter band as a novice. At that time, I thought that 40 was a mostly local band, and DX was nearly impossible to find there. Over the years, I found that to be not at all true. 

 

I did have a run in with the law during that time when the Johnson Viking Ranger drifted a few cycles low out of the novice band and I got a nasty letter in the mail from the FCC that required me to respond with a written reply in triplicate why this happened. It liked to have scared me plumb out of the hobby, and I atribute my nevous twitch, stutter, and hair loss, to this stressful event. I didn't have any way to do triplicate so I wrote my reply by hand 3 times. I would have have been much more comfortable writing a sentance 100 times stating "I will not exceed my novice frequency privelges for any reason". I was very experienced at writing similar sentence from my time at public school and this punishment would have been more in my comfort zone.

 

Over the years I found DXing on 40 to be quite fun.I got married and moved to the location we are still at. My first real DX antenna on 40. was a full size 4 element delta loop fixed toward Oceonia. This allowed much DX into VK and ZL pretty much every morning. My most memorable catch during this time was Madagascar long path CW. It took 3 days to figure out his pattern, and on the 3rd day I was sitting at the rig tuned on his frequency with key in hand. When he made his first call that day, I was his first answer. The prior 2 days I couldn't break through the QRM with 100 watts. 

 

After working a bunch of stations that direction I was ready for something different, and the delta loop came down. I had accumulated a bunch of aluminum from taking down damaged antennas off the cb towers over the years and I was able to build a full size aluminum dipole for 40 and hung it at the top of the 65ft tower favoring NE and SW It was amazing as it was completely in the clear and I was able to work much CW and SSB DX. However on one tower climbing day, I discovered that the torque from the 66 feet of tubing was breaking the welds on the top section of rohn 25 so it had to come down. 

 

After being QRT from 1995 till early 2017, another delta loop went up on 40. It was a 3 element delta loop that I could reverse NE to SW or SW to NE. This stayed up for awhile until it seemed I was seeing the same stations over and over. The most memorable contact with this antenna was with G0EVY where I rag chewed with him for about 30 minutes SSB. I was running 15 watts from a homebrew bitX40 transceiver

 

Of course 2 direction only QSO's got old and omni-directional antennas took their place. A full wave tuned horizontal loop at 60 feet allowed a WSPR report from VK longpath with 3/4 watt. The most memorable 2 way qso being with the same VK station one moring and one evening consecutive in the log with one being long path and the other being short path completing entirely around the world communication.

 

It has taken me a long time  to get to todays DX but a short session around 0400z let me know the 40 is still fun. Nothing rare, but still loads of fun. I suppose when I get tired of a non-USA call replying, I'll take up golf.

 

Have a great day and good DXing my firends!

Randy/W5ZJ

 

 

 

 

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