Topband: Notes on early JA to East Coast QSO's

[Tom Rauch]

John brings back some memories of earlier Topband years. Many stations are
still active on 160 from that era.

I recently worked Tok JA7AO on 160 for a 31-year span of 160 QSO's!

I worked JA7AO (followed by JA1HKP) in Dec 1972 from Toledo, Ohio to
complete my 160 WAC and my 160 country #68. I believe this was the first JA
to USA east of the Rockies on post WWII 160.

LORAN pulses would almost bury S meters against the pin. Eliminating LORAN
required building a special RF noise blanker (using several vacuum tubes of
course!) and an array of eight loop antennas end-fire phased. The loops were
like a series string of Flag antennas linked end-to-end.

Working JA was a matter of figuring out how to get rid of the LORAN and not
the weak signals under the pulses. My transmitter was a Viking Valiant and
receiver was a modified SX101 with crystal filters in the 1st IF. I recently
found one of the filters with eight FT-243 style crystals I hand-ground to
the SX101 IF frequency, but the blanker is probably long gone!

It amazes me what we did back then with next to nothing.

73, Tom W8JI