Topband: W1BB (NOT K1BB, whoever that is)

[Tom W8JI]

I remember this stuff well from the early 1960's. I got my feet wet in 160 
because it was a hotbed for local mobile and ragchew activity in the Great 
Lakes area.

Stew, W1BB, was "famous" on 160 because Stew was the main organizer and main 
promoter of all 160 DX work, including trans-Atlantic tests.

The trans-Atlantic tests were on weekends during DX season, generally at 
Europe sunrise Sunday mornings 0500Z-0730Z on "Saturday midnight" USA, where 
USA stations called CQ on the first and odd 5 minutes and Europe and DX CQ 
the second and even 5 minutes working split. This was because of LORAN, USA 
could not transmit above 1825 and Europe below 1825. There were other tests, 
but these were the popular ones.

Stew also led in the DX chase toward 100 countries, which was very difficult 
back then because antennas were poor, equipment poor, and power levels 
severely limited. 160 was limited to as little as 25 watts dc plate input 
power in certain band sections and hours, which was maybe 12 watts output. 
(In 1983 Amateur power measurements changed to RF output power, instead of 
power amplifier DC input power.)

There were several very active DX'ers on the east coast in the early 1960's, 
some calls were W1HGT, W2EQS, and W2IU,  with W8FPU and W8GDQ active from 
Ohio.

It was an entirely different world in the 1960's because of technology, 
LORAN mandated band segments (25kc wide in the USA), and power levels.

Police and radio location used the area between 1600-1800 kc/s, I used to 
listen to the Cincinatti police at night on an opened up AM BC receiver 
around year 1960. The Great Lakes was also full of radio navigation 
transmitters in the area below 1800 and above the upper end of the AM band 
at 1600 kc/s.

73 Tom