Topband: W1BB (NOT K1BB, whoever that is)

[Don Field]

And don't forget Stew's hand typed and duplicated 160m bulletins, usually
sent out with a personal handwritten note of encouragement. Roger
G3RBP/VE3ZI and I kept it going for a few years after Stew passed away.

Don G3XTT
On 6 Jan 2016 19:11, "Tom W8JI" <w8ji at w8ji.com> wrote:

> 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
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