TopBand: Re: VS6DO (was 3x)

[John Brosnahan]

>"Rumor" had it that VS6DO was running something far more subsatntial than a
>pair of 3-500's to put out that  very very big signal we all used to listen
>to on 80 and 160 back in the miod 80's. I know from many a frustrating
>morning that he certainly could transmit better than he could receive. I
>never did work the guy ~8^)......
>
>Dave
>K9NX


Dave, I operated from VS6DO on a couple of occasions in the 80s 
and I think your rumor mill has it wrong.  You can arguably get 
more out of a 1000 watts of plate dissipation from a 4-1000 than 
you can from a 1000 watts of plate dissipation from a pair of 3-500s, 
but all I ever saw when operating from Paul's place was a single 
4-1000.  And the apartment was small enough so that there was 
no room to hide anything any bigger!  (This was from the apartment
that had an address something like 89 Broadcast Drive, if memory 
serves me.  His place was near one of the TV studios.)

Yes, he could talk better than receive--but for two reasons having 
nothing to do with running big gas. First, and most important, was 
that he had a good TX  antenna, but no separate RX antennas 
and this is in the middle of some of the densest population in the 
world.  Power line noise could be incredible at times.  And from
the top floor of the apartment there was just no room to run any sort 
of decent receiving antennas.  And second, Paul was not such 
a hot CW operator--he could copy calls and reports but not much 
more.  When I did the CW WPX in 87 with Paul as a M/S he said 
he had never done that much CW in weekend before!  If I was 
sleeping and he was suppossed to be operating and got tired or 
bored he would just walk away and not bother to wake me up.  
Fortunately I was sleeping in the same room as the rig (small 
apartment--the shack was also his son's bedroom) and would
usually wake up when I subconsciously heard no CW.

His great TX signal was due to a high antenna on an apartment 
building and a location that was also relatively high.  Unless 
someone else has info to the contrary I don't believe Paul ever 
ran more than the single 4-1000 that I saw and used.  To Paul's 
credit he did build very nice homebrew equipment, all without 
much of any shop facilities.

73  John  W0UN



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