[AMRadio] Odd signals in lower 80 meters

[D. Chester]

From: Anthony W. DePrato <wa4jqs at mikrotec.com>

> guess what that same group that somehow got into the arrl in the late 60's 
> and early 70's are the same group that runs it today. the Prez. is just a 
> figure head with no power just does what little Mr Sunshine up there tells 
> him to do and say. the rest follow suit or are soon replaced. glad someone 
> told the story about the dumbing down of
> qst. Ham Radio Mag the last real ham tech mag went by the wayside years 
> ago. i still have every copy.

Ham Radio was a good technical publication.  Unfortunately, it did not 
survive the great dumb-down of the 1970's-80's, and I think its demise was a 
great loss for amateur radio.  One problem I had with it, though, was that 
the late editor, Jim Fisk (now SK) was strongly anti-AM and was reluctant to 
even admit that the mode existed, despite the fact that there was ample AM 
activity on the lower frequency bands at the time and that the renewed 
interest in AM was steadily growing.

I recall one particular news item that clearly showed this bias,  in one of 
the issues during the FCC's Docket 20777 proceeding, which was proposing to 
"deregulate" amateur AM out of existence below 28.5 mHz.  The article said 
something to the effect that "160m AM enthusiasts are just now learning of 
their peril."  At that time there indeed was some regular AM activity on 
160m, which was still under LORAN frequency and power restrictions, but the 
vast majority of AM activity was on 75m, and most of this was in  the 
Northeastern part of the country, so there was no excuse for anyone at Ham 
Radio to not be well aware that 160m activity made up only a small fraction 
of the overall AM activity that was rapidly coming back to amateur radio. 
Fisk was just refusing to admit that AM was playing any significant role in 
amateur radio at the time.

Nevertheless, I do recall that some articles on specialised methods of AM 
detection made it into HR Magazine during its final years.


Don k4kyv




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