Topband: Subject: My First DX

[W9UCW at aol.com]

Congrats, Gene,
 
Your post reminded me and I  remember the feeling well. It was in the mid 
50's. I had a WW2 surplus  Hammarlund Super Pro receiver but it only covered 
3 to 20 MHz. For 160 I used an  old multi-band 
"living room console" radio that  I modified to give me some bandspread 
adjustment. That worked fine 
for the AM phone contacts I made using my crystal  controlled pair of 6L6's 
and a 200 foot longwire 15 
to 20 feet up in two crabapple trees.
 
I could hear CW stations keying  the noise but there was no beat frequency 
oscillator to produce 
readable code. So one evening I  borrowed the plastic AC/DC radio from my 
mother's kitchen, took 
it down the basement and sat it  on the old console cabinet. I proceeded to 
tune the kitchen AM radio 
so as to beat its local oscillator with the incoming  CW stations on the 
old  console. 
 
It was a task to chase stations  with the two radios, which drifted in 
opposite directions and jumped 
around in response to line  voltage changes. Nevertheless, I managed to 
work a VE1 that evening.  The
thrill of doing that was really  exciting. And to top it off, Stew, W1BB 
made note of the contact in  his
next issue of the 160  Bulletin. 
 
Here's wishing you as much  enjoyment on TopBand as I have had in the last 
58 years.
 
73, Barry, W9UCW