From "Old Timer." Ten meters was at one
time the real "fun" band. Seventy-five was
the kilowatt-corner band, and one almost
needed an invite to be accepted. However,
for ten meters one started by building a tri-
tet oscillator with a war-surplus crystal and
quadrupled to ten. It was used for ground
wave, and could always be counted on for
surprising skip results. My first ten meter rig
was powered by the automobile vibrator
power supply and probably ran less than
five watts input. My antenna was an old
automobile antenna. That's how some hams
operated in those days. I recall one QSO
with an Aussie with that rig. The receiver
was a surplus ARC-5 with the receiver
oscillator and RF coils rewound. It converted
ten meter signals to the broadcast band
automobile receiver A.M. band. Now there
are repeaters on the ten-meter band and with
a little acquaintance with propagation fundamentals
you can have fun around the world. '73s W6BWY

Spike wrote:
From "Old Timer." Ten meters was at one
time the real "fun" band. Seventy-five was
the kilowatt-corner band, and one almost
needed an invite to be accepted. However,
for ten meters one started by building a tri-
tet oscillator with a war-surplus crystal and
quadrupled to ten. It was used for ground
wave, and could always be counted on for
surprising skip results. My first ten meter rig
was powered by the automobile vibrator
power supply and probably ran less than
five watts input. My antenna was an old
automobile antenna. That's how some hams
operated in those days. I recall one QSO
with an Aussie with that rig. The receiver
was a surplus ARC-5 with the receiver
oscillator and RF coils rewound. It converted
ten meter signals to the broadcast band
automobile receiver A.M. band. Now there
are repeaters on the ten-meter band and with
a little acquaintance with propagation fundamentals
you can have fun around the world. '73s W6BWY


Spike,

Man, that takes me back. And what about when the 11-year cycle is at
its peak???!!! You can work the world on a peanut whistle and a wet string.

There is a 10-meter repeater in this area (w1oj) that is occasionally
linked to a popular 2-meter repeater. I've heard guys who otherwise
could not get on HF who use the set up to regularly work guys all over
Europe. I know of three of them who upgraded to General because they
had no idea how much fun HF could be until they tried this!

Dave
kz1o