Text 29585, 146 rader
Skriven 2012-06-09 00:46:39 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
  Kommentar till text 29582 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
Ärende: Fidonews Vol 29 No 23 June 04, 2012 Page: 2
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HI ROy,

On Fri 2012-Jun-08 08:19, Roy Witt (1:387/22) wrote to Richard Webb:

<big snip>
Roy> I posted an example here earlier, which no one commented on.

YEp recall seeing that.  INteresting.  SOme important things to know, what tz
to use when checking for skeds etc.
<snip>
Roy> It's in all caps, so you might need to adjust your reader.

Nope, didn't hurt anything <grin>

Roy> Basically it's a typed message, all in caps with breaks for periods
Roy> inserted to end a sentence.

YEp, pretty standard for radio messages.  Few use actual
punctuation.

<snip>
Roy> I have no idea what the number 8028 is used for.

PRobably their message number.  REmember those message
numbers on "formal" traffic, whether amateur, or military
are part of the audit trail.

<snip>
 Roy>> They are, since the one I'm reading was meticulously done by the
 Roy>> Coast Guard and Navy Dept...

 RW> OH yeah, the USCG radio ops are trained to be.  Goes with
 RW> the teritory with those guys.

Roy> Apparently that is true of the Navy ops too.

INdeed.

 RW>> ON another note from this thread ... size of the radio ...
 RW>> IF that radio only did cw then no modulator needed, that
 RW>> would cut down on some components.  Most serious pilots back then
 RW>> knew MOrse.  IT's quite possible cw was the only mode in use.

 Roy>> It's possible, but MCW was mentioned several times in those
 Roy>> archives...

 RW> True, but if one's listening to a cw signal with the bfo
 RW> engaged it's hard to tell whether one is actually hearing
 RW> mcw or regular on off keyed cw.

Roy> Dunno myself. I haven't used CW in perhaps, 30 years.

I still use it occasionally.  Before katrina i used it a lot more as I was
active in a couple cw traffic nets when I was
working days for awhile.

 RW> I don't think receivers of
 RW> that period were commonly equipped with an s meter, so
 RW> watching the needle bounce wouldn't help ya there <g>.

Roy> The Itasca apparently had an S-meter, as they reported her signal at
Roy> S9...unfortunately, she couldn't hear that transmission.

Maybe, but then remember a lot of signal reports were
delivered by ear, and not by the meter.  Iirc the old
receivers I saw aboard the lst 325 which were ww II vintage
radio room for that ship didn't have.

 RW> Someone knowing the specs of the transmitter they took
 RW> aboard that flight could tell you for sure, but lack of a
 RW> modulator would reduce the bulk quite a bit, always a
 RW> consideration.

Roy> The photo of the factory rep presenting Earhart with the name and
Roy> model of that radio:

<snip>
Roy> The small box she's holding looks more like it would be a direction
Roy> finder, as it has what looks like a 3" meter in the center of the
Roy> box, with a few knobs and switches on it. You know how reporters are
Roy> with descriptions of what's in the photos their photographer
Roy> furnishes them.

There's that too, and I'd be inclined to give that one more
credit because reporters are notorious about not getting the finer points right
when it comes to technology they don't
really understand.

 RW> iF your pilots are using the code anyway and you're
 RW> trying to maximize flight distance and duration any pound you can
 RW> shed is a plus, especially back then.  That one might be easily
 RW> removed from the realm of speculation if one could find the specs of
 RW> that unit and know which of any add-on options were present.

Roy> The size of most radios in the day were much bigger than I would
Roy> have expected an airplane radio to be. But I havn't run across a
Roy> photo of the airplane's actual receiver/transmitter yet.

THis is true too, and that would be an interesting thing to
see, a photo of the radio equipment installed and the
ability to glean info from it.

 Roy>> That could mean that one or two additional tubes would add to the
 Roy>> size.

 RW> YEp, plus additional power supply capability to operate
 RW> those tubes.  An old friend and i were reminiscing just last night on
 RW> the phone about old homebrew radios such as the novice ops of
 RW> yesteryear built to get on the air.  HE was talking about a kit he
 RW> built with iirc a pair of 6gf5's, crystal controlled transmitter of
 RW> course.  QST published plans to add a modulator to it so that said
 RW> novice could get on am voice when he upgraded, just pop in a
 RW> different crystal.  HE noted that it doubled the weight of the
 RW> transmitter and then some.

Roy> If you're familiar with the Heathkit 'Lunch Box' radios offered in
Roy> the 50s and 60s, they were 15 and 10 meter, 5 watt AM radios with
Roy> small tubes. Not much to them and they had a xtal socket on the
Roy> front for changing 'channels' ... totally locked in on transmit but
Roy> had a tunable receiver.

Indeed I am, I had their 6 meter version, called the "sixer" iirc.  Got it on a
trade.  I had a crystal in it for 50.4
mhz, and another crystal for around 50.75 as lots of guys
used that freq where I acquired the radio.  Had to pop it
open and change them.  I remember upsetting a bunch of
neighbors, the super bowl was on and I heard a guy in
Georgia calling cq on 50.4, the band opened, I lived in Iowa and I jumped on
it. All the neighbors as well as my place
did their tv terrestrial over the air with outdoor antennas
as we didn't have a tv signal any closer than about 70 miles from us at the
time.  I sure had people beating on my door
over that one <grin>.

Roy> Haven't seen one of those animals in a coon's age.

Nope, I traded that sixer for something else, ended up with
a Utica 650, basically the same thing, but with a transmit
vfo.  I had a d-104 microphone connected to it.



Regards,
           Richard
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 * Origin:  (1:116/901)