[SCCC] FW: Looking For Write Ups, Comments, Observations AM to SSB

[Jim Price]

One more input from me.  73 - Jim K6ZH
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Hi Dennis - my first phone contest was SS in Nov. 1963.  At that time I had
a Heathkit HX-11 which had been modified to run about 35 watts of
controlled-carrier AM (got a Plate modulator later!) into a 40-meter dipole.
It "tripled" sorta on 15 meters.  I had an HG-10 VFO that worked fine on 40
and 80, but had too little output to operate on 15m.  So I was "rock bound"
on two freqs. on 15 meter phone.  I'm sure that some of the guys I worked
were on SSB, but I can't tell you that for sure.  

What I do remember was 1) I turned out to be the ONLY station on that year
from the Santa Barbara section, 2) I caused a "mini-pileup" on 15 meter
phone, and 3) I ended up with a grand total of 82 Qs!!  My how things have
changed  :-)

I had an RME 6900 receiver, so "tuning in" SSB was no problem.  

But learning to "zero beat" onto an SSB station so that I could call him on
AM, that was a different matter!  It took a long time to figure out where
his non-existent carrier might be and then tune my VFO accordingly.  

My, these are treasured memories.  73 - Jim K6ZH (WB6DPV at the time - very
much a peanut whistle!)