[Lowfer] Re: Oh, CRAP! or - " "HI, " the beacon heard 'roundthe world"

[Robert M. Bratcher Jr.]

At 03:32 PM 9/4/2008, you wrote:

>Gee, it's been a while. I remember that I made a couple transmitters 
>using some transistors I had - I want to say 2N706's. Probably not 
>more than 100 mW of power.
>
>Antennas were 30 ft long horizontal runs of wire about 20 feet off 
>the ground fed with a 20 foot vertical wire, in keeping with the FCC 
>rules. It was a pretty crude system but we did manage to work with 
>CW over a few miles distance.
>
>I'd probably go about it completely differently now! That was almost 
>40 years ago.
>
>73, Zack W9SZ

Interesting antenna. One high flat top. At least it worked!!


>On Thu, 4 Sep 2008, Robert M. Bratcher Jr. wrote:
>
>>At 01:02 AM 9/4/2008, you wrote:
>>
>>>Back in the late 60's I stumbled across a couple 186 kHz crystals 
>>>at a hamfest.  I threw together a couple low-power transmitters 
>>>with them and gave one to a ham across town so we could have QSO's 
>>>on that band. I built a couple up-converters so we could listen 
>>>with our 80-m receivers on 3686 kHz.
>>>So people were doing things on LOWFer frequencies long before internet!
>>>73, Zack W9SZ
>>
>>Do you remember the power level of that transmitter & what kind of 
>>antenna you used? What tubes did you use?
>>
>>
>>>On Wed, 3 Sep 2008, Ed Phillips wrote:
>>>
>>>>At 02:08 PM 9/3/2008, you wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Charlie,
>>>>>
>>>>>>   Does HI have a web site ?
>>>>>Ronnie doesn't even own a typewriter, let alone a computer! Any 
>>>>>QSL's you get from him will be handwritten in pencil on scrap 
>>>>>paper. Sal, K1RGO, visited him recently, and posted this on the 
>>>>>LWCA Message Board:
>>>>>"For an update on medfer HI : I had an eyeball with Ronnie when 
>>>>>I dropped by his QTH after a bit of hiking at Webb Mountain. I 
>>>>>got the tour, it was like a time warp. He is running all tubes 
>>>>>on both the Hifer and Medfer rigs. The latest Medfer rig runs 2 
>>>>>Xtals with a 6BE6 mixer(if any of you can recall that good old 
>>>>>tube)with a output frequency of 513.5 KHz. The IDer is a motor 
>>>>>driven aluminum wheel with pegs. Ronnie has no land line, cell 
>>>>>or computer, only snail mail. His mailbox is decorated with high 
>>>>>voltage insulators so it's easy to find his "shack". ........Sal"
>>>>>JA
>>>>
>>>>So if he's not on the internet then what got him into setting up 
>>>>his stations? Maybe a few magazine articles I'm not aware of. 
>>>>Goes he get reception reports?"
>>>>
>>>>   There have been a number of magazine articles on "1750 meter" 
>>>> beacons going back at least as far as one in QST in the mid-1960's.
>>>>Ed