"Carter, k8vt" wrote:

Bruce Wilson wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONELRAD

In doing some research on Civil Defense I ran across the CONELRAD
stations. In Wikipedia's entry there is a statement that hams were
required in 1957 and later (presumably until 1963 at least) to check
that a major broadcast station was on the air.

Any old-timers remember this requirement? Was it regularly done by
working hams?

Yes it was a requirement and hams were *supposed* to monitor, but who
would really know if all hams did?

My dad had a home-brew Conelrad monitor that was in use at his ham
station whenever he was operating. It was a fixed frequency receiver,
tuned to WJR, a 50 kW, clear-channel (at the time) station located in
the Detroit area.

I was only 12 in '57 and two years away from getting my ham ticket, so
I'm not really sure of the technical details other than that it was
tuned to WJR (760 kHz) and operated a NE-2 neon bulb; if the WJR carrier
went away, the bulb went out. Even though it was home-brew, I don't know
if it was his own design or based on an article in the ham magazines of
the day.

One of the other posters quoted that hams had to monitor 640 or 1240
kHz--but that's not quite right. They just had to monitor a local BC
station...

From http://www.westgeorgia.org/conelrad/ :

Even Amateur Radio (ham) stations had to monitor a broadcast station
at all times, and to stop transmitting if there was a CONELRAD alert.

and from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONELRAD:

Beginning in 1957, operating U.S. amateur radio stations were
required to verify at least once every 10 minutes that a normal
broadcast station was on the air. If not, the amateurs were required
to stop transmitting.

Please note they said "a *normal* broadcast station", not 640 or 1240 kc/s.

"With the importance of CONELRAD in the early 1950's, it's
surprising that amateurs were not required to monitor for the
CONELRAD alarm. This was rectified on January 2, 1957 when
the FCC amended Part 12 of the Rules and Regulations to require
the following:

All operators of stations in the Amateur Radio Service will
be responsible for the reception of the CONELRAD RADIO ALERT
by monitoring 640 or 1240 kc."

I suppose one could go back and find Part 12 from that time to verify if that
were indeed true.

dxAce
Michigan
USA