Instead of one long article I am breaking it down a couple of bands at a time. I have in sixty years of ham radio worked all bands from 160 to two meters. The first part of this article is on the lower bands. More to come in the next few weeks.
Ham Bands.
For those newcomers and old ones alike you are faced with a decision as to what bands you might operate and for what reason. Some bands will suit your needs, while others may not have much appeal to you. It is your decision as to where you operate, what modes and if you want a large station, or a modest one.
Let’s take a look at the bands and see what the old man thinks about each one and based on my nearly six decades of ham radio.
Back in the mid 50’s when I was first licensed I gave little thought to the 160 meter band, no one used it during the day time in my home town of Louisville, Ky. In effect the band was useless due to the LORAN navigational system, this was a wide band signal that blocked most of the band with its machine gun signal. It was a rat-tat tat sound and of course this was audible from about 4pm until sunrise.
After sunrise the band was dead, perhaps a couple of wandering locals, but nothing much else ever showed up on 160. I did however make a few contacts on this band back when I was in the Army during the mid 60’s. I was in charge of a mobile radio truck and often I would fire it up on the ham bands, the mobile antenna on the truck was indeed resonant for 160. I managed to work several stations in the southern part of the U.S, but nothing on the long haul, in years to come I have done some listening on 160 and heard a few South American stations plus some Europeans down on the bottom end of the band.
I have never operated from my home station on 160 and have no immediate plans for that band. For one reason, dipoles become large about 260 feet and verticals even a quarter wave is very tall, of course by adding inductance at the bottom of the antenna you can over come this problem, but it is a lot of turns.
On the local scene one op in Henderson for years until he moved to Texas used to work 160 during the contests. He used a balloon to hoist his antenna up several hundred feet. Rather ingenious, it worked as long as the balloon stayed up, no thunderstorms, or power lines to get in the way. Often good scores in the contest were listed by W4YOK.
If you have the real estate, or tall tower, in the case above a weather balloon to hoist a safe antenna and you wish to experiment on this band, by all means go for it.
This band is basically a night time band, during the daylight hours you might find a local with in a few miles, or a couple of hundred miles, but not much else.
In terms of workable bands this one is on the bottom, but if top band interests you by all means go for it and have fun.
My next band is 80/75 and this is the band I first started my amateur radio adventure on way back in 1956 as a Novice. Back then the Novice band was 3.700 to 3.750 kHz cw only and I was in the middle of the band with several crystals. You were not permitted VFO operation with a Novice License and your next big step was upgrading to General class and gaining phone privileges.
During the day you could always find someone around on the Novice bands, a local, or another ham within a radius of 200 miles, maybe a little further, but not much. Often I would wait until the late afternoon when the band was just starting to open and listen for the Northeastern stations, or the Midwest.
This band was pretty good during those long winter months, it was quiet and you could cover some pretty good distance. In later years I worked a lot of DX in the window of 3.790 to 3.800 kHz, prior to the expansion of the phone band and it used to begin at 3.800 kHz we would operate split and work the DX somewhere below 3.8. For the rest of the band well it is inhabited in the upper portions of the band with various nets. Below 3.9 various rag chewers, or detailed discussions on a wide range of topics. Besides the DX window you have a couple of nets meeting, namely the Geritol net and various rag chewers in the very low portion of the band around 3.605 and up the band. Once the summer begins, well 75/80 meters becomes very noisy and for the most part useless due to high static levels. This lasts until fall, then the popcorn goes away for a few months and the band is usable.
Although, this band requires less space to erect an antenna you still need about 130 feet, or a tall structure to mount an inverted V. In the past when the phone band began at 3.800 MHz things were pretty congested at night. Many stations with full power linear amps were struggling to copy one another for a few hundred miles. I felt if I were going to run full power on a band I wanted to cover more then a few hundred miles. I have not worked 75/80 meters for about twenty years, once I completed the requirements for 5 band DXCC and gained over 100 countries on 80, I moved to 40 meters on a permanent basis.
If 75/80 suits your needs and you find it a good band and want to give this band a try, by all means do so. But, my feelings are do not get stuck in a rut. Other bands present better opportunities. Use the band to chat with your ham friends if they are out of range of a good long-range two-meter machine.
Some of my best contacts on 75/80 were VK/ ZL, JA VK0 and lots of stations from Europe, plus a few from Africa. It is interesting to work the “Grey Line” that is when the sun is just beginning to come up over your DX contact. Signals will build up to big levels and then fade rapidly as it becomes daylight in another part of the world. I was amazed a couple of nights on 75 to work Jordan, Cyprus and South Africa on the “Grey Line” the signals peaked up to excellent copy and then gone within a few minutes.
A super signal from Algeria was worked several times on this band around the midnight hour, great signal for a short time then gone. At some point I may erect another antenna for 75/80 but for now I have more interest in 15/10 and completing my goal on these bands. Yes, for five band DXCC I did make a 110 countries on 75/80 it was fun to try and often it required some loss of needed sleep. If you are going to work this band for DX you need to become a night owl, or early riser. Another great contact was Heard Island I was up early one morning, heard his CQ, no one calling. I jumped on this one and worked this rare island with ease.
This band can provide some good contacts with simple, yet effective antennas. The biggest signals from stateside were from the late W2ONV in New Jersey with wire antennas up over 150 feet and W2HCW who used a full sized 80 meter beam. I imagine this thing was of huge proportions and needed a car engine to turn it. One fellow from W6 Land namely K6UA ran a full sized 80 meter quad, another big antenna and huge proportions. Something this big mounted on your roof, well I would have been surprised once you tried to rotate it that the antenna stayed put, but the house rotated! My XYL would have a real hissy fit if I had tried this big of an antenna.
My folded dipole worked well for this band and yes, there were many DX stations I could not hear that the above mentioned were hearing fine, but I got enough to make 110 countries on the band.
