[AMRadio] Winter Solstice AM Broadcast Propagation recollections

[Lee]

On 12/23/2016 12:11 AM, Lee wrote:
> How about, I'm checking out now and am "Going to Go Modulate the 
> Pillow."  We didn't have antennas.  We had aerials. We had Radio 
> Sets.  We had condensers.  We had "C' batteries for BIAS.  "Your 
> signal is sooo smooth, it's like Sawdust Through a Tin Horn!"
>
> Lee, w0vt
>
>
> On 12/23/2016 12:04 AM, Oliver Steiner wrote:
>> To my fellow radio nostalgia enthusiasts - I fondly remember the
>> phonetic code in use at the time I got my license (1957):
>>
>> Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King,
>> Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle,
>> Victor, William,  Xray, Yoke,  Zebra.
>>
>> ......and the popular cliches of that time: "The XYL is ringing the
>> dinner gong."  "Time to pull the big switch."  "You're armchair copy
>> here!"
>>
>> 73,
>> Ollie
>> W2QXR
>>
>> On 12/22/16, Donald Chester <k4kyv at charter.net> wrote:
>>>> But what amazed me was when I basically removed the slug
>>>> from the antenna coil I was hearing AM Ham stations!  I later found 
>>>> out I
>>> was
>>>> listening to the 75 meter ham phone band.  I was hearing a whole 
>>>> bunch of
>>>> hams talking in and around the Milwaukee area.  I was amazed at all 
>>>> this
>>> and
>>>> from that time on this
>>>> radio was basically a 75 meter AM radio and no longer a BC set
>>> The same thing happened to me.  I had been listening to 40m and 20m 
>>> phone
>>> on
>>> our BC receiver with one 6-18 mc short wave band.  I  had never 
>>> monitored
>>> 75m because I didn't have a receiver to cover it.  I found an old 
>>> 5-tube
>>> AC/DC set in a dumpster, brought it home and tinkered with it till I 
>>> got it
>>> running.  The back masonite cover and loop antenna attached to it were
>>> missing, so I strung up a wire antenna and attached it to one of the 
>>> wires
>>> that originally connected to the loop. Lacking the front-end 
>>> selectivity
>>> provided by the loop, images came through about as well as the 
>>> fundamental
>>> signal.  Starting about 4 PM on winter evenings, 75m phone signals 
>>> began to
>>> override anything on the broadcast band.  Evidently, over a certain 
>>> portion
>>> of the AMBC band, the second harmonic of the local oscillator would 
>>> beat
>>> with the 75m signal to produce the i.f. signal. I was introduced to 
>>> the 75m
>>> band using that  receiver, and a year or so later, picked a 1939 
>>> vintage
>>> all-wave floor model broadcast radio that had both  longwave and 
>>> shortwave
>>> bands, and a RF stage to boot, and had a real shortwave receiver.  I 
>>> later
>>> added a BFO to  the all-wave set and used it while I was a Novice.
>>>
>>> At the time, 75m was almost 100% AM, and a whole lot different from 
>>> what it
>>> is now.
>>>
>>>
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>>
>