[Elecraft] The Complete DXer - OT

[Dave Andrus]

Ed:

Back in the waning days of the Vietnam conflict, I was flying C-130  
aircraft (not as a pilot--but I wish I could've!).  When doing the  
long, boring rides over the Pacific from the Philippines or Hawaii,  
I'd go up and sit with the pilots and crew chief occasionally.   
Sometimes I'd even end up napping in those great bunks that were right  
behind them in the crew cabin!

We got talking about the HF radios on one flight over our headsets,  
and I explained a bit about ham radio to them.  Intrigued, one of them  
tuned one of the twin comm radios down to the 40 meter band and  
listened for a bit.  I forget what the radios were, but they could do  
AM and SSB on either usb or lsb.

They finally asked if I could talk to someone as well, and I said  
sure, why not?  So that night I had my first and only C-130  
aeronautical mobile pileup on 40 meter ssb while flying in towards  
California.  I spent the better part of two hours working hams that  
were intrigued by the unique circumstances.  I think we were putting  
out about 300 watts (really not sure about this) into the C-130's very  
long wire antenna!  The coverage was excellent, and the aircrew got a  
real kick out of my "new" use for one of the comm radios in the ship.   
You definitely get better propagation at 35,000 feet!

My first and only experience on the DX end of a pileup.  Lots of fun!

So, do you have any company restrictions against transmitting while  
you're in command?  I promise I won't tell!

73,

Dave K7DAA
http://www.k7daa.com


On Feb 22, 2008, at 2:24 PM, Ed Lambert wrote:

> One night, 23 January 2008, during a lull in the action on a flight  
> from
> Anchorage to Chicago, I tuned the #2 HF radio to 7.012 MHz and heard  
> W9KNI
> calling cq dx asia. He was rewarded with quite a run. It was  
> instructive
> simply to listen to him in qso with a number of stations during that  
> run. He
> was running one KW to a three element yagi. He did not say what was  
> driving
> the KW. I am thinking it was a K3 but don't know for sure.
>
>
>
> I wish I had some way to get the HF radio on to cw (it only supports  
> upper
> sideband and AM). I could probably get it done with a good audio  
> oscillator
> and usb but am not sure if that would work properly. I would like to  
> have
> tried to contact Bob. I wasn't really dx and certainly wasn't asia  
> but I
> wonder if he's ever worked a B747 on HF cw.
>
>
>
> Ed Lambert KD3Y
>
> _______________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Post to: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
> Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
>
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm
> Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com