[Lowfer] Lowfer history

[Paul Daulton]

My first introduction to the 160-190 bands was an article in Dec 1971 Popular Electronics. I was living in an apartment at that time and had no place for a station except for 2 meters. I kept that magazine for years, thinking that would be on my bucket list of things to do. Another article appeared in an issue of Electronics World(Radio and television News) in about 1992. I built that tx and loading coil for my first tx in jan 2000. 

As a pilot I was familiar with the 200-400 ndbs and back in the '60s I had a Porsche with a Blaupunkt am/fm/mw rec. I often listened to the local ndb which had voice wx announcements every fifteen minutes. Some time in the 60's they discontinued the 3105/6110 to longwave range stations. Many of the bug smashers back then had lw receivers and 10 watt am transmitters on 3105kc. You called in on 3105 and listened on the range stations to talk to the tower and flight service stations. 

It wasnt until I found the lwca site and W3EEE's site around 2003 that I really became involved. My hats off to the guys who worked cw with headphones and surplus receivers back in the old days. 

Steve Ford at QST wrote an article back in 1994 describing the activity at that time and there was a tranceiver article by Dave Curry some time in the '90s. Ford stated in his article that some 200 stations were active at that time. 

Anyone got a copy of that Popular Electronics article from 1971?
Paul Daulton K5WMS
beacon WMS 185.302 khz qrss30/slow 24/7
Jacksonville,Ar 72076
em34wu