[MRCA] Able Archer

[Ken Downs]

Mike,
Thanks for the info on the park. I think we stopped in a "scenic view" sort of small parking area right off the highway.
And I had a brain cramp this morning - the rig was a Lafayette HE45B, not HB-45. My first rig - how could I forget?
I was living with my parents in an apartment on the second floor of a two-story wood framed house in Asbury Park, and as renters, a good antenna was not in the cards. I used two dipoles inside my bedroom - one north-south, the other east-west. My best DX with my eight
big watts of a.m. fone was Chicago. I did often hear stations in the southeast U.S. and not infrequently in Bermuda and the Bahamas.
Working them with one crystal, low power, and a zero-gain antenna was too much to pull off. I did try though. Mostly due to TVI I
got my General class ticket in '65 and said farewell to six meters. By then we were in a single-family house in Wanamassa (just
outside Asbury Park) and I was able to put up outdoor dipoles and a vertical for HF. Much better!

The Big Gun in the area at that time was the "Wild Young Rabbit," John, WA2WYR down the coast a few miles in Avon, NJ. On 6 meters
he had a half-gallon of plate-modulated a.m. and a real antenna. I believe he snagged quite a bit of DX. His neighbors, trying to watch WCBS-TV on channel 2 from NYC were not so enthusiastic about it. Can you say "Front-End Overload" ? Last I heard, John did well in the vanity callsign program and was sporting "W2YR" as his mature ham callsign. We chatted briefly on 160 a few years ago.

Thanks very much for prompting this stroll through Memory Lane. I was in the army from 1967-1987 and in Germany for at least one of
the Able Archer exercises. Can't say I remember much about how that went, but I guess the Warsaw Pact folks couldn't take a joke. All in
a day's work. Germany was more peaceful than VN, but it did have its moments. At least in VN I was armed...

Anyway, have a great Memorial Day weekend. Please take a moment to remember the reason for the holiday. Thanks again
and Very 73!

Ken
.
On Thu, 25 May 2017 09:27:36 -0400 (EDT), MICHAEL ST ANGELO  wrote:


Ken,

There is a park nearby at the highest point on the hill. They claim to be the highest point on the east coast between Acadia Maine and Yucatan Mexico.

I remember the HB45. You were between sunspot peaks of 1957-58 and 1969. How was propagation on 6m in 1964?

Mike N2MS
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