Richard Knoppow wrote:


I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.

640 was VERY vacant in those days and 1240 was very full. I think the
mindset was to cover both extremes but thats only a guess on my part.

When I was a kid I never quite figured how it was supposed to work. We
had a local station on 1240 but it was not the Conelrad station. I
later learned that it was one of the other stations who kept an
auxiliary xmtr available on 1240 for that purpose.

I was only 10 y/o when the scheme ended in 1963 but I recall a neighbor
ham explaining to me about the Conelrad 'monitor' in his shack.

-Bill