[Hallicrafters] BA's at Field Day

[David Thompson]

It was not too long ago that boatanchors were the mainstay of field day
operations.  We had a long history at W5KHB (Old Natchez ARC) of BA's and
mini Ba's.

In 1957 we had a NC-300 and DX-100 on 10/80 and a pair of Gonset twins.  The
Gonset twins continued for years until replaced with Heath SB-100
tranceivers.  One year we made over 700 15 meter AM QSOs on the twins owned
by W5KHB.

I ran the 20 meter position for several years and the rigs were a
Ranger/HQ-110, KWM-1, Eldico SSB-100 and HQ-170, and finally the
Hallicrafters twins (SX-117 and HT-44). We made between 500 and 800 QSOs on
phone and nearly 400 on CW on a regular basis.  The KWM-1 was borrowed and
we found that it did not cover the newly expanded 20 meter band (14.3 to
14.350) in 1960.  We still made 600 SSB and 300 CW QSOs to a Gonset Bantum 2
el beam.  Bet that is an antenna no one has heard of.  Gonset made antennas
for a number of years including a 2 and 3 el. tri-bander.  I had the 3 el
version at home.

Operating is too easy now.  You just talk or keyboard without ever tuning
the transmitter or peaking the antenna on the receiver.

Hope everyone had fun and did not get too hot or wet.

73 Dave K4JRB