I dunno how many times I worked "6L6GB". "QSL
via the buro". Yeah, right.

ROTFLMAO!


You probably did work someone who had a 6L6GB vacuum tube
final in his transmitter....... :-)

Others:
6u6gt
6w6gt
6w4gta
6y6ga
6k5gt
6k8gt
6j5gt
6a8gt
5z4gt
5x4ga
5r4gyb
5u4gb
3q5gt
2w3gt

robert casey wrote:
I dunno how many times I worked "6L6GB". "QSL
via the buro". Yeah, right.

ROTFLMAO!


You probably did work someone who had a 6L6GB vacuum tube
final in his transmitter....... :-)

No doubt. But most of the serious 80M dxers in those days ran "suds", a
lotta power, not just a lotta power but 'WAY too much power. Back then
the max allowable power was one kW input vs. today's 1.5kW output. Any
number of the Really Big Guns used homebrewed amps which tossed out a
kilowatt's worth of heat alone. Or more. And those beasts weren't lossy
linears either. Which is another example of blatent "impurity" in the
CW bands. Offhand I'd be willing to bet that there are far fewer
instances of busting the power limits today than there were back then.
The FCC took the easy way out of having to bother with enforcing the
power limits by roughly tripling the max allowable power input, clever
labor-avoiding folk that they are. That move plus economics, the drying
up of the WW2 parts sources and the need for linear amps have "solved"
the excesss power problem and brought most of those bad old boys and
their descendants into "compliance" today.


Others:
6u6gt
6w6gt
6w4gta
6y6ga
6k5gt
6k8gt
6j5gt
6a8gt
5z4gt
5x4ga
5r4gyb
5u4gb
3q5gt
2w3gt

"Tube callsigns" were a favorite but there were others and some were a
tad on the raunchy side. 4Q2?? showed up more than once. Whatever it
took to get some giggles.

w3rv

No doubt. But most of the serious 80M dxers in those days ran "suds", a
lotta power, not just a lotta power but 'WAY too much power. Back then
the max allowable power was one kW input vs. today's 1.5kW output.

Have heard what is likely an urban legend of a ham (who was
also a broadcast chief engineer) using the 50KW AM transmitter in his
charge to work some rare DX on some HF ham band. Late at
night when it was off for maintenance. Seems unlikely as the
power amp would have circuits tuned for the MW AM broadcast
station's frequency and low pass filters to block harmonics
in the SW spectrum. That's not something one can modify
in a few minutes.

Oh, you could connect a ham transceiver to the broadcast
antenna tower to work some 160m DX, but that would be
legal.

robert casey wrote:

Have heard what is likely an urban legend of a ham (who was
also a broadcast chief engineer) using the 50KW AM transmitter in his
charge to work some rare DX on some HF ham band. Late at
night when it was off for maintenance. Seems unlikely as the
power amp would have circuits tuned for the MW AM broadcast
station's frequency and low pass filters to block harmonics
in the SW spectrum. That's not something one can modify
in a few minutes.

Oh, you could connect a ham transceiver to the broadcast
antenna tower to work some 160m DX, but that would be
legal.


The late WB8LUA was chief engineer at WNOP, a Newport, Kentucky 1,000
watt daytimer with transmitters in suburban Cincinnati. They used a
three tower critical array and all three towers were about 295 feet
tall. Len would disconnect the feeders after sign-off and fire up on
160m through a Dentron tuner at the base of one tower. His barefoot
sigs were incredible. Unfortunately for him, his TS-820's receiver was
eaten alive by broadcast band overload.

An old time W2 in New Jersey (still living) was nailed by the FCC for
running 35 KW from his home in the early 1970's. He beat the rap on a
technicality and is involved in "hi-fi" SSB audio on 20m in his dotage.

Dave K8MN

robert casey wrote:

I dunno how many times I worked "6L6GB". "QSL
via the buro". Yeah, right.

ROTFLMAO!

You probably did work someone who had a 6L6GB vacuum tube
final in his transmitter....... :-)

Others:
6u6gt
6w6gt
6w4gta
6y6ga
6k5gt
6k8gt
6j5gt
6a8gt
5z4gt
5x4ga
5r4gyb
5u4gb
3q5gt
2w3gt

Let's not leave out:

RG8U
F0OL
AP1RL
UR1TOO
VO1LA

Dave K8MN