Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
Hal Williams (N6TZ)
on
March 27, 2004
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The AM broadcast band became an early target as a good place to operate a little CW back in 1956.
As boy scouts, we were learning Morse code and a little electricity, radio, and signaling as we went for those merit badges. The radio badge struck my interest as well as a friend that lived about two blocks away.
His dad was helpful as he had a full workbench with test equipment and of course lots of tubes and old TVs and radios that my friend and I gathered from the trash bins at the two TV shops in the little town of Placentia, Calif. We also took any wire and other useful items from the trash at the electrical contractor and phone company trash.
We learned that a one tube receiver could work better as a regenerative receiver, then we learned from my friends sister that when we turned up the regeneration, she heard us covering up the rock and roll on "color radio" KFWB. Ah, what caused that? My friend's dad explained how it transmitted when this happened.
We were quick to find out more about transmitting and soon had not only good regenerative receivers transmitting, but also good single tube broadband transmitters in the development stages. Not happy that we could not transmit back and forth from our homes yet, we increased the plate voltage and increased our antenna wires at each house. I believe we used 6AG7 tubes, but I may be wrong. The B+ came from the supply of the better AM radios that we had which used a transformer with about 180 volts or so.
Now we were able to hear each other, and nearly on any and all parts of the AM band. To use a phrase from the ARRL - "Now you're talking". No BFO needed, as the signal was rough enough to be easy copy. It was summer vacation and now we settled down to regular skeds many times each day.
This went on for a week or two, but one evening as I sat at the kitchen table having dinner as a family, there was a knock on the door. The front door in that post-war cracker box house was only about 15 feet from the kitchen table, so I could clearly hear the conversation as my dad answered the door to find the neighbor lady from two houses away. She make her point very clear - " I am sick and tired of your kid ruining my listening to the House Party program on KFI, and I want it stopped now!" My dad assured her that he knew nothing of this event, but he would get to the bottom of it.
That was the end to all the fun, and it would be another year or more until I was back on the air, but on 40 meter CW. I might add, that an older kid with a drivers license took us in his car to see how far it went and we did well over 3 miles. To listeners further from my house, they might have mistaken my CW for the CW that would come through many of the AM receivers of the time from a maritime station operating near the frequency of their I.F. strips on 455 kilocycles in Long beach. Cheaper receivers did not have a RF amplifier stage before the conversion stage and KOK maritime would go right through.
Hal, N6TZ@arrl.net
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N6AJR on March 27, 2004
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great story, mine hapened in okinawa with a friend who lived across the srteet, and we started with a " 2 tin can and string telephone " and got upgraded to a " 2 old speaker with wires on the ground" after the car drove through the string......and we were off.
thanks for bringing back some fun memories..
73 tom N6AJR
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by KA7BTV on March 27, 2004
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As AJR said, great story. I started out with a set of Archer(remember those?) 100mw walkie-talkies, talking to a friend a few houses away. The year was 1972, and it would be another 5 years before I would become a ham. Thanks for the memories :)
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 27, 2004
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I agree, this is a great story.
Somewhere around 1955, in Provo, Utah, I had some similar adventures. I was about 13, at the time.
My friend and I made some small Hartley (tapped coil) Vacuum tube Oscillators on the Broadcast Band.
We put the Oscillator in a small Cardboard box, with a 1.5 volt "A" battery (filiment), and a 45 volt "C" battery (plate). The coil was a Superex Vari-Loop, that we unwound a bit, and added a tap to build a Hartley oscillator circuit. I believe the fixed Capacitor was about 180 mmf (now we use pf). The antenna was an adjustable auto antenna, sticking out of the box.
The frequency could be adjusted by screwing the Vari-Loop slug in or out.
We turned on the oscillator, and set it in the back yard. We then tuned the signal in, on a small portable radio, and walked up the street to see how far it would go. We got about 1.5 miles or so, which we felt was pretty good for a low power Oscillator, and very short antenna. We didn't try CW, but had fun listening to the steady signal.
In Provo, back then, there were only about 4 Radio Stations, so we could always find a clear spot to transmit on.
73s Kent W7DUD
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 27, 2004
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I might add, that a Kid could afford to build these contraptions back then. As I recall, the tubes I used were available at 5 for a dollar, the Vari-Loop was about 39 cents, the tube socket at about 10 cents. The "C" battery for about 1 dollar. All from the BA catalog.
We eventually took the Oscillator into the house, and somehow AM modulated it with the EICO 324 signal generator 400 "Cycle per second" (remember that) Audio Sine Wave tone. That made the signal easier to find, on the Broadcast band.
Yes folks! You could get a pretty fine shock from "C" batteries, especially the 67 1/2 and 90 volt batteries.
Before we used Vacuum tubes, we built a "Spark Gap" "All Frequency" transmitter, using a Model T Ford ignition coil (Sears had them in local stock), and Lantern Battery. That signal was the easiest to find, on the broadcast band. No tuning required!!
73s Kent W7DUD
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K2WH on March 27, 2004
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Great story and reminded me of my attempts to get on the "Broadcast Band" prior to even knowing Ham Radio even existed.
As I was learning how things worked, especially oscillators. One day as I was walking along the highway, I saw a construction crew digging up the road. Of course they put out those flashing yellow warning lights that have a 6v battery in a plastic compartment with the big round yellow lens and a single bulb inside flashing at a 1 second rate. That got me thinking what would happen if I took one of these (stole it, after all this was Jersey City), and instead of the bulb, I put a coil in the bulb socket. Wouldn't you know the damn thing transmitted in the broadcast band with a whooping/swishing signal right through the entire band with a good signal and probably beyond. I guess that was the charging circuit causing it to swoosh through the band. Wow, this was great stuff.
So I decided at that point I understood enough about this stuff to roll my own. I pulled a 50c5 tube from the family radio and built a power oscillator on a board with nails as tie points. Pill bottles as coil forms and parts from old TV's. I powered it up and after experimenting with caps and coils, got it to transmit on 1605khz. Needing an antenna, (I lived in a housing project), I used magnet wire salvaged from an old transformer, tied a rock on one end and threw it over the high voltage power lines outside the house. Since I lived on the third floor, the high voltage lines on the poles were at the right height. Never realized I could have killed myself doing this, thank God the cables were insulated.
Anyway, after much trial and error, I was able to get RF into the antenna. A neon bulb held next to the antenna actually glowed. I calculated 17 watts.
I then took my sisters AM/FM/Record player unit (when she wasn't home), and my fathers wood saw and cut the thing in half. I only wanted the record player, she could have the AM/FM half. I coupled the cartridge output from the record player to the tube grid and BAM, I was the housing project DJ spinning records like "Inagda DaVida" on 1605khz AM of course with lots of FM'ing but easily understandable.
This was fun until my father the understanding soul he was, thought I had gone off the deep end. Of course, my little sister standing there pointing at me with her head rotating 360 degrees and screaming about her record player didn't help either. Whoo, what a day that was.
Still, it was fun.
K2WH
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K8BBE on March 27, 2004
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Boy... Now that brings back old memories...
Building a code transmitter from my 7 in 1 kit
that used a 6SN7 tube... or the one I remember too
is when I built my first regen receiver. I put it on
my Dad's zepp, and a friend of mine was able to pick
it up about a mile away...
Chuck K8BBE
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by KC2HJN on March 27, 2004
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Funny, I see many of you saying "good story" and such. I wonder if it was you being interfered with, would you still think it was so great? I realize he was just a kid playing around, but if some new or soon to be ham reads this and says "oh let me try that"....well you get the idea.
I'm not trying to preach, but I just found it ironic how many hams cry bloody murder when interfered with, but there are ony "good story" type responses to someone who caused intentional interference.
Ok, down off my soapbox now.
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 27, 2004
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Gee. Lighten up. We all learned our lessons about interference. We were all duly chastised. Experiments are done to find out what happens, and to learn. This is not about Ham Radio interference. That goes around the world. I bet you wouldn't have worried too much about a few minutes of interference either, when you were about 14. It you would have, you were more conciencous than me.
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W5HTW on March 27, 2004
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My father had a record player from the 1940s that was actually designed to be played through a BC radio. It was just a metal box, played only 78 rpm records, and had a tuned oscillator in it. You tuned it to a clear frequency on the AM BC band and listened to your records on the radio. I have no idea now what brand it was. After he bought a new record player and radio combination, a huge console (before the days of stereo, though) he gave me that old "broadcast record player." I was 12, and though I knew there was such a thing as ham radio that is all I knew about it. But I knew I could transmit on this record player. I tried different things, like disconnecting the phono arm and hooking up a microphone, or connecting a homemade strip key (I got a good shock out of that one until I put an insulated handle on the key!) and sending dots and dashes, though I knew only the code chart from Boy Scouts.
The range was very limited, typically only 50 feet at best. So I hooked up an antenna to it, a "long wire" - a wire about 50-60 feet long, and a neighbor boy said he could pick it up on his AM radio, a block away, though it was not very strong. I found myself wondering if there was a way to amplify it, but I didn't know much about electronics at all, so I never bothered to try. Eventually the old record player was junked, tossed into the trash can. But I had some fun with it before its demise.
Have not thought of that old record player in years. My guess it it was manufactured during the World War II era, as it was old when it came to my attention, in about 1952. It was supposed to be a cheap way to play records, for it needed no amplifier or speakers. My guess is it was manufactured by RCA as they did most of the record players of the late 40s.
Yes, it was fun, and no, I gave no consideration to interference.
73
Ed
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K2WH on March 27, 2004
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KC2HJN????????????
Man you need to lighten up. This is not a serious subject it is a fun topic. TVI or AM broadcast interference went with the territory back in those days.
K2WH
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by AA4PB on March 27, 2004
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Back in the 50's my first transmitter was "spark", believe it or not. That's because the only info I had on ham radio was from my dad's old encylopedia and that's what it described as a ham rig. It did work to my friends AM radio down the road but it didn't last too long because of the interferrence to the family's radio.
One summer I was working on a local farm and found an old surplus field telephone in the barn. I took it as part of my pay that summer. We had an old wire fence that ran the half mile or so from my house to my friends house. We used it for one conductor and enameled wire from some old transformers for the other (threaded thru the fence). An old car battery located in the basement provided the power. Imagine my dad's surprise the first time he heard a phone ringing in my room.
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 27, 2004
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4PB:
Thank you for that nostalgic comment. We used to ride our bikes down to the local telephone office. On any given day, we could "scrounge" some discarded desk telephones, and very long lengths of discarded telephone wire. It was not copper, but seemed to be some sort of steel or Iron. We ran wire from my house, to me friends house, put a dry-cell battery in series, and we could talk to each other half the night. We decided to continue the wire another block, to another friends house. Believe it or not, we ran over the road in 2 places, and through some tall trees, to his house. The ringers worked, and we had some enjoyable simultaneous 3-way conversations. That was in the 50s. Ill bet some of the old wire is still up there in the trees somewhere.
73s Kent W7DUD
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by WB9NJB on March 27, 2004
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KC2HJN,
You need to get the knots out of your underwear. Your comments are just symtomatic of the thought police mentality that permeates so much of our society today. In the fifties and sixties, kids pursued their curiosity, even if such pursuit crossed over the line. Today, they don't have the opportunity, or the interest to do so, and if they do, there is always someone who takes it upon himself to "protect" them for their own good. Such a society will not produce much in the way of innovation, let alone fun. Great story in any event.
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N0MLR on March 27, 2004
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Well I admit I was Bitten at an early age with Radio. In 1964 when I was only 4 I would sit and look at the CB Radios in the Sears Catalog. I wished so much that I had one. You could say its been a life long interest for me.
Well I did the usual stuff with Cans and String and that led to a pair of 100 Mw Walkie Talkies. My cousin and I were both having fun with them and would try differant stuff. We took the antenna out of one and hooked up some TV coax and put a Bike Rim on a poll and believe it or not it worked better than the Short 4 foot telescopic that came with the Walkie Talkie. We tried wire as antennas to. Well one day we decided that if it worked good off a 9 volt battery it should work much better on the 110 volt AC main. Now we didnt know anything about rectification and break down voltage and all that at age 8. So imagine our surprise when the Walkie Talkie became a Flaming Mass in my hand when I turned it on. No I didnt get shocked but I knew instinctively that somehow there was something missing in our hypothisis. We didnt try it again.
Over the years I built AM radio transmitters and experimented a lot also with them. Then when I was about 13 my Step Dad bought me a 23 Channel CB and antenna and I was on the air. I experimented with Antennas at this point based on formation gleaned from the 2nd class FCC license study guide. I was building Power Supplies and gained enough knowledge and skill that by 15 I was building the Heath Products like the Bench Model VTVM and the IG-102 Signal Generator and the Transistor and Diode tester. Well all that led to neighbors wanting stuff repaired. By the 16 th birthday I had a fair repair Business and was doing CB repair, TV repair and even Power Tools. Well upon Graduation I went on to Electronics School at Linn Tech in Linn Mo. The instructors were all X Military and Very Good at teaching. I had to leave College early because I had met a Girl who I could not live without. I took and passed the 2 nd Class FCC Exam and by age 20 I was operating my own Business and a Dealer For Midland Land Mobile Products. I was selling to Fire, Police, and Business users in and 8 county Area. Serviceing What I sold and others stuff like Scanners and Light Bar/ Sirens as well.
I got out of Business in 1997 due to health and while I was deciding what to do next with my life I went ahead and got the Technician License and the Call of KC0BXA. Now I am N0MLR with the Vanity Call.
My point is I experimented a Lot as a kid and probably caused interferance to AM users as well. This all led to a life long Vocation and my Hobby now that my health makes it impossible to work any longer. If not for the early interest and experiments I would probably not have went as far as I did. If only the Kids to day would do as many of us there would be so much less anger and a lot more pride in who they are. Thanks for your time reading my long post.
Greg Dunn / N0MLR
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K8LEA on March 27, 2004
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I had one of those little "hear yourself on the radio" toys when I was about 10. Lots of fun...
Range was about a half block, too!
Nobody complained.
We're "deep fringe" for Channel 2 here, too - when I got on 6M in about 1959 I expected problems, but nobody ever called. Just lucky....
It turned out that a neighbor _was_ hearing me, but he'd been a bootlegger (the kind who operated radios without a license) back in the 30's, and enjoyed what he was hearing. It would have been nice to give the guy a 6M receiver, but "cheap scanners" didn't exist at the time.
Had a funny one, though - somewhere in that time frame (1959-1972) I got a phone call from a girl I'd gone to High School with. "Do you know 'K8xxx?" When I told her that I did, and wondered why she cared, she told me that she'd been hearing him talk to me on 6M (by way of her TV set) and remembered my call... He had a TVI-generator for a rig - "6N2" sticks in my mind, but I'm not sure what - and he definitely was close enough to her to take out Channel 2.
IMHO, kids will find a way to destroy anything they get near anyway, so a little TVI or RFI probably should be smiled at. It's when the kid won't stop, or when the parents get nasty, that we need to care. Sometimes Elmer showing up to show the kids how to do it correctly may be the best thing that could happen, too. And, it's funny when the neighbors complain that you were taking out their TV all last week, while you were on vacation someplace....
Stu K8LEA
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W4MGY on March 27, 2004
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Great thread! When I was a budding radio junkie 40 years ago, I was a radio pirate of a sort. In a trade, I accquired an old Heathkit RF signal generator. Bypassing the output attenuator, and beefing up the output stage, it made a fairly decent sounding rig to fire up on the broadcast band. My favorite stunt was to 'rebroadcast' audio taken from a SW receiver, such as the likes of Radio Moscow, Radio Habanna Cuba, and the BBC. The thing could be hard for several blocks on a good longwire antenna. My Dad worried that the FCC would come knocking on our door because of the content of my 'broadcasts', so I gave up, and sold it to a buddy.
Later, a local station in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida decided to changed it's format from country to Top-40. I was one on those upset country music fans who did not appreciate not being able to hear Merle Haggard, or Buck Owens. At the time I was taking Electronics in High School, and everybody was listening to that station which had gone top-40. We had radios playing in the electronics lab, and the guys upstairs had the same going on in the Radio TV servicing class.
Quietly, I built up a 3 watt AM transmitter that was tuned to the local rocker. It was hidden in a cabinet in the Lab's storeroom, so it was not too easily found. To show that I was not pleased in the new format change, I fed the audio taken from a radio that was tuned to a country station in another town, and rebroadcast it directly on top of the Top-40 station's frequency. Jeez, you ought to have heard the howls of protest when I was blocking out the Suprimes with Red Sovine! There was another local station that ran Top-40, so it was no big deal to simply switch stations, and nobody seemed to care or say anything about it.
That rig got out pretty good too, about 3-4 blocks, enough to make it impossible to hear the 'new' rocker on any car radio in the school's parking lot. My electronics teacher no doubt knew what I was up to, but he probably thought of as another teenage prank, and dismissed it as such. The thing wasn't fired up every day, but it was often enough that it became an irritant to those who wanted to hear that station in the vicinity of the school.
As any radio junkie, I made the rounds to all the local AM and FM stations we had back then. I even had the termerity to visit the station I jammed. Keeping up a poker face, they never I was their 'nightmare', or so I thought. Somehow, unknown to me, they managed to connect the dots, and figure out who the jammer was. One day, I paid the station a visit, acting as my usual self. The Program Director, who was also a very popular DJ, quietly took me aside. Oh nuts, I was a goner now. He quietly told me they knew all about my jamming activities and was told to cease operations immediatly, or the FCC would be called. I agreed to call it quits, and we shook hands on it. The next time I operated an AM transmitter was a few years later as a licensed engineer in a Top-40 station!
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by KC8VWM on March 27, 2004
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Nice thread about radio experiences. Someone mentioned the old "Archer" 100 mw walkie talkies from RS. I remember getting a pair of these for my B'day one year, I think it was 1974. It was fun to experiment with these at the time.
I gave one to a friend and was interested in seeing how far I could talk with these units. I remember riding my bike as far as I could away from the "base unit" and noted the locations I could hear my friend talking. It was probably no more than a quarter mile range or so.
After the experiment, my friend and I discussed ways to increase the range of these radios over a couple of hot dogs we had for lunch. (He was just as interested in this experiment as I was!) Our first thought was to place the antenna from the "base station" walkie talkie higher and outside of the house.
We decided the best place to start was in the garage.
Let me explain why.
The garage was where my salvaged, but prized floor model Stromberg Carlson SWL radio was located. In effect, the garage was my ham shack although, I didn't really know what a ham shack was in 1975.
I had performed many other electronic experiments there in the past from articles I curiously read from the sacred yellowed pages of my "RS electronics bible."
This book was mostly responsible for the creation of my broken radio & TV parts graveyard located in a dusty wooden crate I kept in the garage. I had an interest in "collecting" TV tubes that I often acquired from riding my bike around the neighborhood.
I collected "thrown out" TV and radio sets to build up my parts collection. Someone had actually thrown out the Stromberg Carlson floor model SW radio, hence the reason it was located in the garage as my parents didn't want (the junk) it in the house.
Now back to the Archer radio experiments. The "electronics bible" did have a section about building long wire antennas in it. It also discussed theory and mentioned things about the "Kennelly-Heaviside layer." (It was an old book) Me and my friend started to theorize about our using our Archer 100mw walkie talkies to talk all around the world!!
We didn't really understand the mechanics of it all at the time but, the book showed a picture of radio waves bouncing in the sky and back to the ground hundreds of miles away!!
We decide that this "Kennelly-Heaviside layer antenna" could be constructed from transformer wire we had in the parts graveyard. We started unwinding the wire from it and eventually we had a wire around 80 feet long.
We nailed a stick to the peak of the garage roof
and also put a nail near the top of it. We started by wrapping the wire around the walkie talkie antenna and ran it to the top of the stick on the garage roof. We wrapped the wire around the stick and then over to a tree. My friend climbed the tree while holding on to the wire. He got it up as high as he could until he ran out of wire and then wrapped it around a tree limb.
We were pretty excited about our new "around the world" antenna. Because of the extreme distance we would get from this new Kennelly-Heaviside layer antenna, me and my friend decided that we needed to have extra long life batteries in our radios to communicate for longer periods of time for such long distances!!
We put two brand new 9 volt "Red EverReady" batteries (The ones with a picture of a cat on them) in our radios before our experiment would begin.
I put extra oil on my bike chain and we were now ready to start our experiment.
I started driving my bike away from the house and started taking signal observations right away. My first impression was it was definitely a stronger signal when I reached the stop sign at the end of my street!
I drove to known "fringe signal" areas and the signal was stronger like never before! I told my friend (Archer #2) that I am going to try crossing a field to see if he could hear me. I rode my bike across the dirt path and got to the other side and in my amazement he could hear me "loud and clear." My heart was just about pumping out of my chest by this time. My antenna was definitely working!
I later experimented with longer and higher antennas, but I never did go across the ocean to see if the radios would communicate with each other.
73
Charles - KC8VWM (Archer #1)
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by X-WB1AUW on March 27, 2004
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Great stories.
Getting upset over what kids did 50 years ago?
Any of you worried about someone turning you in now? ;-)
Bob
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by AF0H on March 27, 2004
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My project / jamming mechanism was made from an old '160-In-1 Electronics Project Kit' from rat shack. It had a project in it called a 'Broadband RF Generator'. In the instructions, it stated that to comply with FCC reg's not to use more than 3-volts and not to use an antenna longer than 3' in length.
Well, built and operated as described, it knocked out the AM radio as well as the TV and even made noise on the FM radio. Ok, this was cool but.... my first thought was a 12-volt car battery (actually the tractor) and use the wire clothes line for the antenna - it was zig-zagged back and forth making one LONG wire.
It worked alright, my grandparents next door and my house of course lost TV and radio that afternoon. Talking to the neighbors 1/2 mile up the road, they had the same problem. Hihi, it really worked!
I was doing fine till the next day when Dad noticed what I was doing - and my timing wasn't the best either, since the day before (when I was jamming the airwaves) was Superbowl Sunday.
Needless to say, that never happened again.
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by K2VCO on March 28, 2004
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This must have been about 1957. The novice band was full of Soviet jammers, trying to cover up RFE and VOA with buzzsaw-like whines. I had just finished building a Heathkit GD-1 grid dip meter, and had a great time dipping everything in sight, and listening to its jammer-like signal in my receiver.
The same evening, my dad and I were in the living room, watching the world series on TV. He asked me to go get him a soda from the refrigerator. I didn't feel like getting up, and he informed me that if I couldn't get him a soda, I could &6%$ well go upstairs to my room and he'd tell me who won.
I went up to my attic room and saw my new GDO...which could tune up well beyond channel 11! I plugged in the little VHF hairpin, held the GDO near the toilet vent pipe which conveniently passed through my room, and rotated the dial until I heard noises, first from the TV and then from my dad. I waited a while, and then yelled down that I would turn off the jammer if he would let me watch the game. It's easy to imagine what happened next (duh).
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by N0UY on March 28, 2004
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Thanks to all of you for a very enjoyable read. This would be a great topic while sitting around the tables at the local hamfest. I think my sides would be aching about now. In my own youthful experiences I did not experiment with broadcasting on the am frequencies, but rather spent my time hanging a lot of wire attached it to the old radio in the barn in attempts to improve the reception. You see, if I could get just the right music playing during milking time, the cows seem to be less nervous and I might get done with a few less tail swats to the face. Now there is another youthful experience that has been lost to technology as well. Hard work side by side with your family just because that’s the way it was.
Best Wishes,
Ray
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by KC8VWM on March 28, 2004
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My earlier post described my early walkie talkie experiments. This is a continuation of my early experiments with radio around 1974 -1975.
Later I used that "Kennelly-Heaviside layer antenna" I constructed for my salvaged floor model Stromberg Carlson SW receiver and Wow! - what a difference!
WWV was now blasting in and I could hear each tick with such ambiance on the built in 12 inch speaker like never before. The time never sounded so good!
I once again referred to my circa 1960's "Allied Radio Shack Electronics Bible" for a new project.
This project would involve a simple "spark gap" transmitter as was described in the yellowed pages of the book. I went over to the electronic parts graveyard in the dusty wooden crate in the garage and proceeded to find parts I salvaged from TV's and radios that might be of use for this project.
I decided to use my new "Kennelly-Heaviside layer antenna" as it was still up in the air from my earlier project.
I was starting to feel like I was some sort of mad professor experimenting with building Frankenstein in my garage.
I continued reading my Allied Radio Shack book and the idea of reading about Marconi in Bologna experimenting with spark gap transmitters made me so hungry, I decided to have something to eat before I started.
I decided that in order to build my transmitter, I needed to construct something that would generate or create a spark between two points.
I had an old doorbell buzzer, some wire, and my antenna.. hmmmm. Would this work I thought?
I used a AC to DC transformer I savaged from a transistor radio to connect the door buzzer and made it buzz by touching the + wire to the buzzer terminal.
I suddenly heard loud static noises with a high frequency pitch over the 12 inch speaker of my SW radio.
I decided that I needed a better way to send my signals other than touching wires together, so I constructed a "signaling key" using a flat piece of metal screwed into a block of wood I found. I wrapped a piece of tin foil around a section of the block of wood and connected it to one of the wires.
It was basically a simple switch, but I now had better control of the buzzer signals. I was reading about morse code in my electronics book. It had a chart showing international morse code signals but it was difficult to keep the book open on this page while I was "buzzing" signals at the same time.
I decided to make my own chart and copied the strange dots and dashes onto a separate piece of paper. I could now look at the paper on the wall in front of me
while using the buzzer switch I had constructed.
I played with the buzzer making signals I read from the chart. This was the first time I had ever been introduced to morse code in any form. It was 1975.
I remember the smell of "ozone" produced from the buzzer at the time. The buzzer and transformer was heating up. The arcing on the signal key was becoming a concern to me at the time. It was becoming harder to send signals as carbon was starting to build up on the key.
I cleaned it with steel wool and it started working again. I started thinking about my antenna and forgot all about connecting it up!
I wasn't sure how to do this at the time as the book was not that specific. So I decided to experiment some. My sister was in the house and I asked her assistance. I gave her my handheld transistor radio and tuned it to the AM band in the house. I went back out to the "shack" in the garage and started sending signals again. I quickly learned the SOS signal and at the time I thought it was "interesting" to send it to see if she could hear it in the house.
She did in fact hear it. She said it was a little faint and hard to hear. I connected my 80 foot wire to the buzzer and sent the signals again. I went back in the house and she said it was very loud. She told me she had to turn the radio volume down.
My mother suddenly asked what me and my sister were doing. She indicated that a similar noise was coming from the TV set she was watching. Whatever I was doing in the garage was affecting the TV she was watching!!
The next day I had a friend who lived about 1000 feet away to take my AM transistor radio for a walk to see if he could hear my signals. As it turns out he did!
Apparently, so did my mother as I suddenly heard her yelling my name during the experiment!
73
Charles - KC8VWM
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by KC2HJN on March 28, 2004
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"KC2HJN????????????
Man you need to lighten up. This is not a serious subject it is a fun topic"
"KC2HJN,
You need to get the knots out of your underwear. Your comments are just symtomatic of the thought police mentality that permeates so much of our society today"
Man, I didn't think I said anything so bad. Lighten up? I am normaly the one saying that so don't accuse me of "thought patrol" (anyway, it wasn't a thought, it was an action). I just couldn't help myself given the constant whining about interference I hear. Sorry if I upset anyone, that wasn't my intent.
Just keep those two comments above in mind next time you feel like crying about something.
73
KC2HJN
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W5HTW on March 28, 2004
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KC2HJN
In a way I actually agreed with your posting. But it was done as an adult, and certainly if any of us tried those things as adults, we would be irresponsible, or worse. When we were kids, though, and knew nothing about ham radio, or regulations, or rules, or affecting others, we were experimenting and we were growing. Somewhere along the line we learned of the negative effects of what we were doing, and we stopped.
There is a line that is easy to cross, especially for adults who actually know better. And a few do, fortunately a relatively small percentage of hams. But for a kid, the line really isn't defined, if he even knows of it at all. There wasn't a "driver's manual" for operating these things, as there is for learning to operate a car. The path wasn't clear.
Setting examples is certainly a part of Elmering. Yet encouraging experimenting is a major part of ham radio. We as adults try to encourage the youth to experiment within the rules, of course, but when the rules are not clear, as they weren't for most of this in the 40s through the 60s, you go where you must go.
You were right. It is not wise to encourage rule breaking. That results in CB. We do, though, need to build into ham radio some of the excitement of personal discovery, for it is going away at an alarming rate. Kids in science glass in elementary school are experimenting with things that may lead them to a career in that field, and some of those kids will try some experiments at home, away from school. Some of them will break the rules. Hopefully! For some of them may learn what we need in the future.
The difference between breaking the rules as an experiment, to learn, to educate, and breaking the rules as a practice, just to aggravate, is a very big difference indeed, even though the result may be the same. To do so maliciously is wrong. To do so ignorantly is not noble, but it is how much of the things we know in this world today came about.
It needs to continue. It is the motives we need to address.
73
Ed
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N8VB on March 28, 2004
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W5HTW wrote:
"It is not wise to encourage rule breaking. That results in CB."
No. It results in illegal operators - this is not limited to the CB band as it happens all the time with licensed operators in the Ham bands too. Last time I checked there were rules covering the Citizen's Radio Service. If you choose to break those rules you are operating illegally, not being a Cber. Believe it or not, there are many Cbers that operate legally.
N8VB
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 28, 2004
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In my case, I tuned my small transmitter to an area of the broadcast band that had no commercial stations. That was about 90 percent of the broadcast band. The ignition coil "Spark" generator, that covered the broadcast band, was no fun, went about 40 feet, and was on a total of about 30 seconds. However, the large demonstration Tesla Coil, and Van Degraff generators in the School nearby, caused much more severe interference on broadcast, and HF, for a much longer time period. Perfectly legal I assume, for the learning of Electric and Electronic principles. The power input from my small signal tube transmitter was roughly .5 milliamperes times 45 volts = 22.5 Milliwatts. Output power was considerably lower, because 100 percent efficiency is impossible. I would do it all over again. It was the part of the inspiration, that led me to my personally rewarding career. Some of us just must know what will happen! When you are 13 or 14, with no Ham license yet, you probably do not know about "interference", on the BROADCAST BAND, until you do the experiment, to see what happens. Curousity is not illegal. It is the starting point for inovation. Continuing after observing the interference is.
73 Kent W7DUD
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 28, 2004
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My last sentence should have said:
Continuing after observing the interference is illeagal.
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W7DUD on March 28, 2004
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One last try:
Continuing after observing the interference is illegal.
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N3NL on March 28, 2004
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Great stories. But now I see that an organization
National Conference of Volunteer Examiner
Coordinators in FCC docket RM-10870 is proposing
that the new ham beginners (Communicator Class)
will not be allowed to build equipment. How are
hams supposed to learn radio technology without
building any equipment? Or are we supposed to just
be consumers?
By the way, I started out as a kid building a spark gap
transmitter using a Model T spark coil in the 1960s.
It made a bunch of RF noise for a short while.
73, Nickolaus E. Leggett, N3NL
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by W6NNABE on March 29, 2004
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N3NL:
It's not really an option for Techs even now, except on 6M. You need to be pretty hardcore to build a circuit on UHF, and VHF is one of those things better dealt with in kit form.
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N3NL on March 29, 2004
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The new Communicator Class hams would be operating
on HF with a no-code license. Blocking them from
building equipment on HF is a serious issue. Without
such a limit, they could build their own QRP AM rigs
or get into CW and build their own gear. Many people
learn electronics better by building their own
equipment.
73, Nickolaus E. Leggett, N3NL
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by KA4KOE on March 29, 2004
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Fan dipoles, if cut properly, should've worked great way down in the AM band.
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K2AES on March 30, 2004
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In 1947, when I was 14, I found that my 5-tube superhet sent out a signal that could be detected by the receiver owned by another kid, Sy, who lived below us in my apartment house. I could also hear the signal sent out by his superhet. We realized that this worked only with the antennas connected. We bought surplus J-38 keys and inserted them between the receivers and their antennas. We then used this system to practice sending CW to one another. We went on to obtain our Boy Scout Radio merit badges. After that we got ham licenses (he is ex-W2YCP). As an adult, Sy continued in radio purchasing an AM station in Connecticut.
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Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by WS8B on April 3, 2004
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My first radio adventure was with a kit from International Crystal Company. I read about it in Popular Electronics, in the mid sixties. I built it for channel 7 CB. Imagine, CW on channel 7. My first HT, was a C-100 from Allied Knight Kit. As a result of building the kit, I made a bit of cash, assembling other radios for many of the kids, around.
I still have the PC boards, from both radios.
I too, re-wired AM recievers, to transmit. I learned, later, in High School Electronics, that all recievers, had local ocilators, that would also transmit.
I recieved my first ticket in 1977.
73...de...ws8b
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by N3FQL on May 13, 2004
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My radio days started with my grandfather's big Hallicrafter's TW2000. It sat on his kitchen table where he would sit and listen to Pittsburgh Pirate baseball games. He said he needed that big receiver to pick up the games, but I think he was a closet SWL. I would visit and take the "portable" radio up to the attic of the house and tune in the world. ( I later dissected that radio ...yes, you can kick me!) From there I decided I wanted to transmit. I found and old "Archer Base Station" it was gray, about the size of a shoebox. It had a Morse Code key (orange) and received the AM band and the CB band. It transmitted on Channel 14. It had a smallish whip antenna. Well I experimented with different wires and poles. I finally settled on a 20 foot bamboo pole with the whip from the radio remoived and placed on top, with TV coax running the length. From our home which was on a hilltop over looking the highway , I was able to talk to a few truckers that would get off 19 for a clear channel. That pushed me into CB and I hounded my folks for a CB for Christmas. In 1975 I got a 23 channel Pace 113 and was on the air! ALl my friends also got CB bases and we would "hang out" on a channel till late in the night. My folks were glad I wasn't out causing trouble , and I was totally into it. When I went to college, radio had to wait, but after graduationa and my first job and ham license in 1984. it's been a major part of my life. I teach school and have led many kids into the radio hobby. We have a radio club and a great station at the school where I teach. Now if I can just get the administration to give us more club time top operate! The time is scarce with all the standardized testing and such. Please give some of your older gear to clubs and kids you see the "spark" in! Give back to your hobby! It is the essence of self-preservation! Sincerely, N3FQL
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RE: Operating CW on AM Broadcast Band
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by K4CMD on March 21, 2006
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Man, this has been an interesting topic to read through. When you meet new hams at club meetings, you seldom hear about each other's childhoods. It's amazing to see how many of us had similar introductions to radio via walkie-talkies in the '70s.
If you're one of those people and you really want to take a trip down nostalgia lane, go to ebay and do a search for "vintage walkie". I found my old two-channel Midland (ca. 1975) in there and damned near bought it -- decided against it in favor of replacing the Sears microscope I had as a kid.
Doggone it ebay, I'm finding out you CAN go back! :)
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