[Milsurplus] Down the Rabbit Hole...

[Bruce Gentry]

When I was in high school and learning to fly, the story of Amelia 
Earhart fascinated me deeply. Among the equipment on her plane the Radio 
Direction Finder, RDF, was very fascinating. I quickly learned about the 
ADF, automatic direction finder, and set out to get one.  The ARN-7 
required a good bit of 400 cycle power, but our friends in Lima Ohio 
were able to come up with a semiautomatic version that could work  on 24 
volts DC only. I quickly discovered I had a 12 volt dynamotor that would 
power it, so after rewiring the filaments i had  an operational unit. My 
parents very grudgingly allowed me to take it on road trips, and annoyed 
the crap out of them triangulating stations and plotting our progress, 
sometimes with startling accuracy. In the summer of 1968, I got an ARN-6 
system together with parts from Fair in Lima and G&G in New York City. 
Mobile operation would have to wait three more years until I had my own 
car and freedom to install it and a 24 volt power source. In the mean 
time, in the fall of 1968, I had some fun DXing with it.  The loop could 
be manually controlled, so I could null out a station. I would set my 
alarm clock to wake me at 23:50 on Sunday night, and wait for local and 
regional stations to sign off for weekly transmitter service. As they 
went off, the ARN-6 allowed me to null out one station and hear others. 
After about ten minutes, I would reset my clock and go back to sleep to 
wake up one hour later. Now, at 00:50 on Monday,  I could repeat the 
effort and log stations in the mountain time zone.  It was amazing as to 
how quiet the band would get, and the distant stations of low power that 
could be heard.

        Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY



On 1/14/14 2:04 AM, Thomas Adams wrote:
> Sometimes in fooling around with radio, the obvious is hiding in plain 
> sight.
>
> Even tho the sport of AM Broadcast Band DXing is a dying art (being 
> slowly poisoned to death
> by IBOC garbage that is definitely NOT "On Channel"...  unless you 
> accept ADJACENT channel!),
> while pursuing it sometimes you can get a surprise or two.
>
> Alice in Wonderland went down a rabbit hole and made all sorts of 
> interesting discoveries...  sometimes
> there are OTHER technological rabbit holes that contain interesting 
> things, hiding in plain sight.
>
>
> Switching to DF mode and setting the RF gain to the center of the 
> meter scale, out of curiosity I took a
> bearing on WSM, using the usual method; put WSM in the null of the loop.
>
> Yep, there it was, at about 160 degrees...  but I was a bit surprised 
> to note that there was another signal
> there that WSM had been obliterating ("Clear Channel" doesn't mean 
> diddlysquat anymore...).
>
> Turning down the RBB and listening to the new signal...  it was 
> carrying Fox Network. Signal strength
> was quite good; an easily readable signal. It was near the top of the 
> hour, so I stayed, just in case these
> guys STILL observed the time honored, but usually ignored, practice of 
> Station Identification.
>
> Yep, they DID do an ID...   KGAB, Cheyenne...
>
>
> Too bad that Chief Engineers these days don't know diddly about 
> reception reports or QSL cards; THIS one
> would be well worth writing for!
>
>
> Mr. T., W9LBB
>
>
>
>
>
>
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