[ARC5] Field Day musings...

[Geoff]

>>>> My most memorable FD was back in the early 60s up in
>>>> Humboldt Co.  Had a converted Command Set transmitter on the bottom of 
>>>> 80 meters and a  DAQ navy receiver (nearly a cubic yard of aluminum) 
>>>> and with a dipole hanging from a couple of redwood trees on Kneeland 
>>>> Mountain I worked all states and all of Canada with that set up.  The 
>>>> Command set had been reduced to one 1625 in the PA and ran full Break 
>>>> In with a decoupled VFO cathode and ran the final with a 200 Ohm 
>>>> resistor in the cathode for a kinda pseudo AB1 scheme.  Got about 10 
>>>> watts or so out, but with a great antenna I could work anything that I 
>>>> could hear on the band.  Ah those were the days indeed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Bob. KE6F
>>>>
>>>    I love hearing these stories.  I never got to a field day until was 
>>> an adult. I heard plenty of signals on Saturday and none at all on 
>>> Sunday.
>>>    I suppose the kids now find things to be fascinated with but I wonder 
>>> if its anything like radio was for us. people don't seem to understand 
>>> that ham radio works all on its own, while cell phones and computers 
>>> need a vast system of equipment and networks to connect. We don't even 
>>> need the power company and field day is one of the demonstrations of 
>>> that. My antediluvian RCA receiver on 25 feet of wire hung over the 
>>> rafters in the garage will hear Spain, Germany, England, Italy, 
>>> Australia, New Zealand, all over South and Central America, not to 
>>> mention all those non-DX stations (and I mean hams, not broadcast). I 
>>> wonder what it would do with a decent antenna.  To me this is still 
>>> absolute magic.
>>> --
>>> Richard Knoppow
>>> Los Angeles
>>> WB6KBL
>>> dickburk at ix.netcom.com



>> Most of those old consumer grade radios, as well as many military, will 
>> fold up from overload on a big antenna. They were designed for a 20-40' 
>> wire from a house to tree, military whip, etc.
>>
>> My various consoles such as a RCA 811K, Zenith 12S265, 15U271 and 
>> 12S471, Scott 800B, Philco 38-690, and others do just fine with various 
>> 30-40' wires, including in the attic and under 3rd story eaves. That was 
>> after spending considerable time eliminating offensive home electronics 
>> noises.
>>
>> The R-388, 51J4,  for instance fold up on a real antenna and I havent 
>> bothered modifying the antenna coils and RF amp
>>
>> I got my first taste of SWL and ham AM at my maternal grandmothers around 
>> 1952-3 listening to a black dial 30's Zenith table model (might have been 
>> a 6S229 going by photos). My parents had no interest in SW and only had a 
>> AM/FM RCA table model.
>>
>> Carl
>
>
>     I'm not sure what you mean by fold up, overload badly? Anyway, the 
> AR-88 is not a consumer grade radio, it was built as a commercial receiver 
> and has a transformer input on all bands.  There is a great deal of 
> information on the AR-88 and its relatives on the web.  See 
> http://www.radioblvd.com/index.html   for lots of it.
>
>
> --
> Richard Knoppow


I wouldnt have wasted my time posting if you had bothered to list the model 
in your post. RCA made a hell of a lot more consumer radios with SW coverage 
than the limited production AR-88.
Fold up has long been a synomyn for overload, long before I was a ham.

Carl