Martin,

I was licensed in early 66 and that was my first hot band cycle.  Boy, it
was amazing.  The boys who went through the one before that claimed it was
even better.  What I recall of the others were about as you described.
There is nothing as fun as a few years of super band conditions.  The one in
the late seventies and early eighties, I was just on 80 and 40 and 20 and on
20 I had a 4 element beam.  Just for the fun of it, I kept track of what I
worked on 20 meters and within one year, I worked 295 countries.  That was
with the wood pecker trying to screw up the band, too.  Long path on 20 in
the mornings was the best I ever heard it.  I worked more Russians back then
than Japanese.  I got to be good friends with one guy and we once talked on
side band for 2 full hours from a club station in Russian and they ran about
10,000 watts.  He told me about some of the other big Russian stations
running that much power and more.  Forget that 200 watt limit.  The big club
stations never ran low power according to him.  One of the Ukraine stations
ran upwards of 20,000.  I worked the guy one night and he turned off the
amp.  His signal almost disappeared in the mud but with the amp on, he was
40 over nine.

Phil.
K0NX