[Lowfer] Getting on Part 15

[Zack Widup]

Wow, you guys are making me reminisce.  I don't go back quite that far but 
I started SWL'ing in about 1964 and got my Novice in 1967. I've had my 
current callsign since 1976.

73, Zack W9SZ

On Thu, 4 Sep 2008, Peter Cranwell wrote:

> My first rig was a Ford spark coil and a buzzer back in 1956.  My friend 
> KN2QFT and I would communicate about a city block using the low end of the 
> brroadcast band at 500 KHZ (before I got licensed as KN2RBV).  We hung Army 
> field phone wire on the phone poles, only to have it removed by the phone 
> company once a month.  As we lived in Union City NJ we had access to a 
> military electronics surplus store (Red Arrow Electronics).  We could get all 
> the wire we wanted.  We were also a Saturday Mornings trip to Cortland and 
> Canal streets (Military surplus heaven)  in NYC before they built the World 
> Trade buildings.
>
> Then after I finished High School and did a stint in the US Navy, got 
> married, I moved to Westfield NJ in 1965 , about 1/2 mile from W2IMB and get 
> into LOWFER expermimentation on 189.5.   Back then it was all vacuum tube, 
> except for the receivers and receiving converters.  The MPF102 was just 
> available and we used it for a lot of the new solid state designs.
>
> My first receiver was an ARC-5 to which I added a down converter, a 100KHZ 
> second IF, a crystal crystal filter and a 4 pole audio filter made from 88 
> Mhy toroids.  It could pick fly dirt out of pepper.
>
> Ken ran "K" as a beacon, I ran "P".  The beacon was made from a circular PC 
> board with the letters etched into thecircuit, rotated by a phonograph motor 
> and IBM wire relay contacts to act as cats whiskers.
>
> My only remaining pictures are in my memory.  Like an old beagle, eyes 
> closed, lying in front of the fire, dreaming about the early days when I 
> could chase rabbits, I reply the scenes on the insides of my eyelids with my 
> minds projector.
>
> Cheers
>
> Pete
>
> WA2EIN
>
> I'll get a beacon on 189 as the winter approaches from these mountains of 
> Virginia.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "KD7JYK DM09" <kd7jyk at earthlink.net>
> To: "Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, &amp; UK) and MedFer bands" 
> <lowfer at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 9:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] Getting on Part 15
>
>
>> My first rig was newer, solid state, 400 Hz AM modulation, noisey, it was
>> square wave, built from an old single channel remote control.  I have many
>> boxes of the little transmitters, could rebuilt it, maybe use a 555 to
>> control on-off keying rather than a dedicated MP sending "X", still have 
>> one
>> MP1312 in an electronics kit, would like to find more so I don't loose the
>> last one in it's original intent, a Science Fair Microcomputer Trainer from
>> 1984.
>> 
>> Kurt
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Charles W5COV" <cvest at cox.net>
>> 
>> : I had my old tube version one until a few years back. If I remember
>> : correctly it used a 6BZ6 .
>> 
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