A couple months ago, Art Bell talked about the solar maximum (of cycle 19) in the late 1950s when the sunspot count was very high. He said shortwave reception was incredible then, and he was easily receiving hams from around the world. Were any of you listening to shortwave or hams at that time? I want to know more about what it was like.

weatherall wrote:
A couple months ago, Art Bell talked about the solar maximum (of cycle
19) in the late 1950s when the sunspot count was very high. He said
shortwave reception was incredible then, and he was easily receiving
hams from around the world. Were any of you listening to shortwave or
hams at that time? I want to know more about what it was like.

Well, the best as its ever been in my lifetime. Just got my General
class ham ticket around '59 or '60, so I was able to use my dad's ham
station-a Heath Apache and Mohawk with a 60 foot tower and a tri-band beam.

Working DX was almost too easy... the bands were spectacular, open
almost 24 hours a day, even 10 meters. Just for an experiment, I
remember turning down the transmit power to around ten watts on 20
meters, and working KC6PE (Ponape Island) on the first call...

Talked to an old Tech once about 1958
(sunspots~200+) in the early
Sixties.He said that it was so good
it became boring...transcontinental
6 meter AM,plus even some Europeans
using special permission.
So they would go into the parlor and
watch transcontinental DX on TV channels
2,3,4....or just read a book.g



"Carter-K8VT" wrote in message
et...
weatherall wrote:
A couple months ago, Art Bell talked about the solar maximum (of cycle
19) in the late 1950s when the sunspot count was very high. He said
shortwave reception was incredible then, and he was easily receiving
hams from around the world. Were any of you listening to shortwave or
hams at that time? I want to know more about what it was like.

Well, the best as its ever been in my lifetime. Just got my General class
ham ticket around '59 or '60, so I was able to use my dad's ham station-a
Heath Apache and Mohawk with a 60 foot tower and a tri-band beam.

Working DX was almost too easy... the bands were spectacular, open almost
24 hours a day, even 10 meters. Just for an experiment, I remember turning
down the transmit power to around ten watts on 20 meters, and working
KC6PE (Ponape Island) on the first call...

On Sun, 21 May 2006 23:59:13 +0000, weatherall
wrote:


A couple months ago, Art Bell talked about the solar maximum (of cycle
19) in the late 1950s when the sunspot count was very high. He said
shortwave reception was incredible then, and he was easily receiving
hams from around the world. Were any of you listening to shortwave or
hams at that time? I want to know more about what it was like.

Six meters, one of the more mercurial bands, was amazing. When it
opened up, I could pretty much work anywhere with a homebrew 5-watt AM
transmitter and ground plane antenna.

bob
k5qwg

Dear "weatherall" with no call sign:

It was good. At the University, a classmate of mine (W8BZB) had a little
car because his home was in town (in those days, a student normally had to
be 21 in order to be allowed to drive). He set up a 10 meter AM mobile and
regularly made contacts into Europe and beyond. The tube set got its HV
from a dynamotor (DC motor running a DC generator with many parts in
common). His little car had a 6 VDC system. After quite some time, he
noticed that the dynamotor was a 12 volt device!

Yes, propagation was great.

73, Mac N8TT

--
J. Mc Laughlin; Michigan U.S.A.
Home:

"J. Mc Laughlin" wrote:

Dear "weatherall" with no call sign:

Since when is a callsign required to be a shortwave listener?

dxAce
Michigan
USA