> on 6M. Same in many respects for the Top Band. It took
Stew Perry years of
> hard work and persistence to earn his 160 Meter DXCC.
That happened for a number of reasons.
1.) There weren't anywhere near the stations available to
work. Many countries couldn't even work 160 until the 70's.
2.) LORAN was on and power limits were severe, as were
frequency restrictions.
3.) Stew did not have a big station, and he was not in an
especially ideal location.
4.) Common receiving equipment wasn't nearly as good in the
selectivity department, and Stew wasn't a rich man able to
buy cutting edge gear.
5.) We didn't know nearly as much about antennas back then.
The only advantages were that most operation was forced
split and propagated noise floor was significantly less back
then.
When you look at everything, the lack of packet or chat
rooms had little to do with it. We all knew where to look
for a particular station, or what small area of the band
each country was allowed to operate. It was also much less
crowded, and no one felt pressured to hurry a QSO. I
remember W2EQS working for hours to make a complete QSO with
one station. You'd rarely get away with that today without
jammers starting.
We did quite well without packet. The common alert was a
"one ringer" on the telephone. That way there were no long
distance charges. We often didn't know who the DX station
was or what frequency the DX was on, but we knew from the
one ringer it was time to roll out of bed and tune around.
73 Tom
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