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