Quote:
Originally Posted by delta5  Work the world on a walkie-talkie? 
I actually did that when I was a kid. The sunspot cycle was at the point that you could not hear your neighbor two blocks away, but you could work the world with half a watt.. |
Wyman K2GB was a retired engineer for bell labs He was firist licensed in 1919..
He worked on the transistor in the 1940's and had a protype in his home when he died in the 1980's .... He was married to a woman who haited HAM radio and lived in a complex that did not allow antennas ......
So .......
I meet him back when I was a teenage HAM and he mentored me with his vast knolege of RF and radio now He loved to talk on the radio and had built a battery powered radio in a box that he hid from everyone but could take out and talk to the locals WHEN SHE WAS NOT AROUND .....
Fast forward 10 years ........
In the late 60's she died and he was able to get on more offen and the owners allowed him to put up a 5 elm beam on the roof so now he had 1/4 watt feeding a 5 elm beam on 144.100 mhz AM.
One night in the early 70's the band was open from New York city to North Carolina and I was running a quad stack array of 17 elm KLM beams and a 4cx250 push pull amp which on AM would run about 300 watts ......
I was talking to a station when Wyman broke in and asked
" Do you think he might hear me ?"
" HEAR YOU ! Your almost as strong as your buddy is ! "
He went on to work over 20 states and into Canada on 2 meter AM before his death running this battery powered 1/4 watt station .......
Never undersetmate what flea power can do ........
Bruce
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