[QCWA] What was your first station?

[Joe]

Mine you all wont believe. 1975

40 meter inverted Vee antenna, apex at 20 feet ends at 4 feet.

Transmitter, Heathkit DX-40 with two crystals, (Custom Ground ) 7105 & 
7115 was what they started as.

I was at this time also an avid telescope maker, so I had all the 
grinding grits to make a telescope mirror. So I took apart these two 
crystals and custom ground them slightly moving them up in frequency 
till they ended up where I needed them.  This may seem strange and also 
common thing to do in those days. BUT I did it for a totally different 
reason.

The Heath was a gift, from a local ham, sadly I can not remember who.

The coax came in from the antenna, and went to an old knife switch, not 
a coax switch but a knife switch like one of these.

http://www.eham.net/data/classifieds/images/304821.jpg

the antenna being the center common set, transmitter at the left and 
receiver at the right.

Now receiver, you would NOT believe what it was. It was a cheap generic 
like buy from a Monkey wards catalog etc. an all band radio,

Ya know one like this,
http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/371620752085-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

Look how big 40meters was he he he.

Plus, this was AM ONLY, no SSB or CW, or BFO, even, So while 99.999% of 
you were listening to morse code as having beeps or tones.

I was listening to on and off noise. Most times. Yes I was able to learn 
and copy code with no tones.

I'm betting it was a major reason why I love the AU mode on 2 meters 
when signals bounce off an aurora on that band it sounds like this.

https://youtu.be/3Bl0aeQpu0g?t=58s

But sometimes when conditions were just right, I had perfect audio tones 
to listen to on those two crystals.

Remember I ground them some to change their frequency? Reason was, In 
those days international broadcasts were also in that part of 40 meters, 
and actualy every afternoon from ohhhh 3 PM Central USA time till way 
past midnight there were strong broadcast stations on those two frequencies.

Now I did not grind those crystals to get AWAY from the broadcast stations.

I USED THEM!!!

I slid up about 800 Hz higher. Soooo, when I cqed, people heard my 
signal OK, even with the station there. but what was neat. on my end 
with that terrible reciever, in AM only, I heard stations answering me 
as tones. Their signal heteryodyned with the boradcast signal and 
produced a tone in my AM reeciever.

I worked 38 states towards my WAS with that setup.

Joe at that time WN9SBD  now WB9SBD
Sig
The Original Rolling Ball Clock
Idle Tyme
Idle-Tyme.com
http://www.idle-tyme.com
On 9/1/2016 5:50 PM, Kevin Berlen wrote:
> DX40 transmitter, ARC-5 receiver, 40m dipole. One crystal for 7133. Novice call WN9QBR.
>
>
> Kevin Berlen
> Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S®6 active, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
> -------- Original message --------From: Bill Leggett <weleggett at gmail.com> Date: 9/1/16  4:08 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: qcwa at mailman.qth.net Subject: [QCWA]  What was your first station?
> Novice, 1964, HR-10 & DX-35, 135ft end fed wire XTALs for 80m, first call
> WN8OYT Garfield heights, Ohio
>
> --Bill N8AAM
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