>
>>"Mark -- When I was running a tetrode with handles [putting out 14k] on
>>40m to thwart the jammers, a number of people wrote to the FCC and
>>complained. "
>
>
>Rich,
> You didn't say how long ago your 14KW activity took place. Was it years
>ago when the FCC was at full strength and did they give you a call?
>73,
It was c. 1981. They didn't contact me or inspect my station. The odds
of them catching me doing 14k were small since about the only times I ran
it was when the jammers were active, which was maybe 20-minutes a week,
or less. One of the most amusing things was when someone would ask me
what made their S-meter increase so much. When I told them it was a
grid-driven tetrode with handles running at 8kVDC, some said I was a
goddamn liar because nobody would admit to running such a thing on the
air.
- Switching to running legal suds was simple -- turn down the mic gain
so that the anode-current meter did not wiggle during modulation. This
was Class A operation. If more suds were needed to communicate, turn up
the mic gain.
- The logic behind this was that if the FCC was unwilling to go after
the jammers, they weren't likely to go after a guy whose amp had an extra
8db gain to get over the jammers. Years later I found out that the guys
who worked at the FCC monitoring station considered the discussions and
jamming in the 40m Combat Zone to be delightsome entertainment, and they
weren't about to spoil the show. One of them even wrote poetry about the
shenanigans.
cheers, Ken
- Rich..., 805.386.3734, www.vcnet.com/measures.
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