KØHB wrote:
wrote

160 was popular with 'phone men, but a decent antenna
for that band was/is enormous and BCI could be a real devil.

Phone women too. My Mom's xmtr was hardwired for160 (no plug-ins).

MY BAD!!!

Should read "'phone hams"!

Sidebar point: In those days, amateur HF 'phone operation was limited
to
160, 75, 20 and 10 meters. Not only were the subbands allocated to
'phone
narrower than today, but use of 75 and 20 meter 'phone required a Class
A
license. 160 and 10 meters became very popular 'phone bands because
all license classes could operate 'phone there.

Put 4600 hams (10% of the total licensees) on the air at once and each
would less than 250 cycles. The bands WERE approaching saturation.

Only theoretically. Geographic sharing isn't a post-war invention.

True enough.

However the point is still valid - the number of QSOs that the 1930s
HF amateur bands and equipment could handle was much less than today.

73 de Jim, N2EY