Topband: Antique Wireless Asociation 1929 QSO Party---Topband Edition

[Eddy Swynar]

Good Day All,

Well, if you're at all historically-minded, and the coming 10-meter contest is not your thing, why not sit back & relax this weekend, and listen for the participants in this the second (and final) instalment of The Antique Wireless Association's 1929 QSO Party...?

2012 is an eventful occasion in that this is the very first year that operation on 160-meters has been authorized. To that end, it is everyone's intention to remain just in the 1800- to 1810-KHz portion of the band, so as to minimize the impact of our presence upon regular operations on 160. 

But never fear: participants are limited to a maximum input of just 20-watts from midnight to dawn, and only 10-watts the rest of the time...besides, it takes a LOT of tubing to add 160 to one's oscillator tank, and the expense of copper alone will doubtlessly keep many would-be contenders at bay...!

If you've never heard what signals from the "...Roaring 20s" sounded like, you're in for a real treat. Forget about your Elekraft K-3s, and your software defined radios: the signals you'll be hearing will all emanate "...analog-ically"(!) from 1929 (and earlier) vacuum tubes (do the monikers 210, 227, 245, 211, or 203A mean anything to you...?!). And the quality of these signals will run the entire gamut from "mild", to "wild"---chirps, yoops, buzzes, growls...well, the list goes on. Suffice it to say that whatever RF might be squeezed out of a self-excited oscillator transmitter of the Hartley, TNT, TPTG, Colpitts, MOPA, etc., design, you're bound to hear it from 6:00 PM EST this coming Saturday, to 6:00 PM EST Sunday.

Interested enough for more info...? Click onto this site for all of the details: http://www.antiquewireless.org/pdf/kelley_rules.pdf

It goes without saying, of course, that if you happen to be harbouring a "retro-relic" from 1929 in your cache of goodies, by all means feel free to join the fray---only don't expect anything even approaching a run rate of 4 QSOs per minute! (It's more like 4 minutes per QSO! Hi Hi)

Thanks in advance for accommodating our presence on the band---we sincerely hope that you might get a tickle from listening to signals this weekend that doubtlessly would have made your father (or grandfather!) beam with pride...

~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ