I'm almost certain that all of his serious DXing was done from the water
tower location. He also had a 160m station at his home, but it was on a
very small urban lot and as I recall, he had only a low dipole up for 160m
there.
Whenever I heard him operating from the water tower site, he would sign
W1BB/1 to indicate portable operation but I guess that was required back
then.
That's correct, if you think back we assigned a station address and a
operator address on our licenses. Today, we only have an operator contact
address. There is no station location or license location except as defined
within this boundary:
(1) Within 50 km of the Earth's surface and at a place where the amateur
service is regulated by the FCC;
(2) Within 50 km of the Earth's surface and aboard any vessel or craft that
is documented or registered in the United States; or
(3) More than 50 km above the Earth's surface aboard any craft that is
documented or registered in the United States.
Our station license covers the entire jurisdiction of the FCC, rather than a
street address like it did in the 70's and earlier and it is any radio we
control. Thus we no longer need to sign / district or mobile, or report to
the FCC when we are going to operate away from home more than a certain time
or distance.
The station location license is gone. It is now everywhere the FCC controls
as one big location, anywhere we control a radio.
Stew had to sign /1 because at that time station licenses were location
specific. There was no station license assigned to the water tower address.
He was legally required to use /1.
If there was a station license there, like W1XX, it would have been W1XX.
Not W1BB.
What I'm not sure of is operating above the class of the a station location,
prior to the elimination of the station license we used to get (I think it
was listed at the top of the license as "transmitter location or authorized
remote location" ). Mine always said "same as below" :-) .
Does anyone recall that rule? I know remote control locations had to be
licensed, but what was the identifier when using another Ham's station who
had lower license class but a station license assigned to that address?
73 Tom
unless Stew's class allowed operation outside that station license class.
Then it would have been both calls, but I can't recall if it was W1XX/W1BB
or the other way.
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