[SMCARA] First ever

Thu Jun 4 11:39:37 EDT 2015

Welcome to the "Magic Band"! 

Story time! Back in 1957-58, we were in the middle of a "hot" (pun) sunspot cycle, called "The International Geophysical Year" and Six was "the band".  I was a relatively new (K1AST-1956) ham and had borrowed a Gonset Communicator (aka Gooney Box) AM transceiver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonset_Communicator )from our local Civil Defense ham club.  I built a 5 element Yagi out of 2x4s and EMT rotated by a war surplus antenna reel (heavy!).  Sounds weird, but it worked!  In support of Sam, K3KLC's recent treatise on 72 ohm coax, that is what mine was fed with, since it was just coming into use for television antennas and was easier to work with than the standard 300 ohm twinlead.  The "Tune and Load" controls on the gooney box made the difference between 50 and 72 transparent to use a popular current buzzword. I even tried some mobile using the Gooney which had a built in 12 volt power supply and a "Saturn Six" halo antenna (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMpPi8G2GDM) which looked like a basketball hoop on your car!

Boy did we have fun! Up and down the East coast and out to the Rockies was the norm.  Only got to 6 land a couple of times.  Even got across the pond a couple of times with my big 8 watts of AM.  We had a wonderful beacon to tell us when the band was open- it was called BBC-1.  The BBC channel 1 transmitted on the high end of 6 meters, which is why 6 was not available to the UK until just recently.  If we heard the Beebs audio coming in, it meant that it was time to call CQ.   There was a guy in Florida, near Tampa, named Bob, W4GJO (good juicy oranges) who was retired and you could always count on a Q with him!  He had a 100 foot tower with a "long-john" multi element Yagi fed by a 100 watt Johnson 6N2 transmitter and a National NC-300 with a Tecraft low noise converter.  His stuff was state of the art!  He eventually stepped his power up to 500 watts using high level plate modulation- none of this "leenyar" stuff!

I was fortunate to have a summer job with an electronics firm with a wonderful storeroom full of components!  I was encouraged to "tinker".  I was assigned to an engineer who would design a circuit and I would "breadboard" it to see if it worked.  We had many things that worked, but  many failures also. Therein lay my "junk box", with lots of slightly used RF parts!  A few trips to "Radio Row" in Manhattan supplied the rest. That summer resulted in the construction of a 100 watt 6 Meter AM rig, featuring an 829B (http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0174.htm) final modulated by a pair of 6146s (http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0546.htm) !  It was big, heavy, and lots of fun!  It followed me around from CT to TN to Pax River until I got orders overseas and I left it here at W3PQT on base.  After I returned I picked it up and dragged it to FL.  Used it a little, but SSB on 6 was taking over.  Finally sold it to a guy who wanted to use the 829B power amp to kick his 10 watt SSB rig up to 100. 

Pete, WA3UMY and I both still have operational Gonsets and we might be talked into an AM demonstration at a club meeting sometime!

73 de Tom/W4OKW, ex K1AST/WA4DGM/EA7BXP/VP2MTC/TF0AA

-----Original Message-----
From: SMCARA [mailto:smcara-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Tom Shelton, ND3N
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 3:54 PM
To: smcara at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [SMCARA] First ever

Some of you might tell me it's no big deal, or observe that it's about time.   Others may cite the adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
I know the adage doesn't carry water because I have a couple of old dogs and I've taught them new tricks...

Back to me...  I made my first ever 6 meter contact.  Hand sent CW using my new vibroplex keyer, the contact was at 50098.5 MHz with WU1ITU.  

I really enjoyed doing something,  even if it easy for everyone else, it was still my first.  Now to figure out how to get on 160M...

Tom Shelton, ND3N
240-434-3811

If it ain't broke,  let's fix it until it is...

______________________________________________________________
SMCARA mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/smcara
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:SMCARA at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to frederic.clarke at navy.mil