[Hallicrafters] VHF DX

[Rich Oliver]

The most impressive VHF ducting event I ever witnessed was in the early 
70's when I was living in rural Indiana.  One Sunday morning I noticed 
that I was getting interference on channel 18, the local UHF TV station, 
so I started tuning around and rotating my antenna to see what was out 
there.  There were two or three stations at different bearings on every 
UHF channel.

I worked my way up the dial thinking it would stop at any moment, but it 
just kept going.  I finally hit channel 42 (642 MHz) with the antenna 
pointing NE.  I gave up at that point and watched Le Monde Merveilleux 
de Disney from Montreal until I had to leave for work.

I had worked as a transmitter engineer at Channel 18 a few years earlier 
when I was a Purdue student and often pulled the Saturday night signoff/ 
Sunday morning signon shift.  I took a pillow, blanket, and alarm clock 
and spent the night at the transmitter site.  After signoff you could 
patch the main antenna, a 40 foot pylon at 650 feet, into the air 
monitor.  It was fun to watch the other channel 18 stations sign off and 
more distant ones pop up in their place until you got to the all-nighter 
in St. Louis.  No ducting required with that antenna!

Thanks for the detour down memory lane.

73, Rich