Phil,

I'd forgotten about the Puke.  I think there was an 8-lander named 
Fred, who also ran high power, but I don't remember his call.  I 
think he was eventually kicked off the air.

One interesting phenomenon you might not have known about was the 
dual QSOs on 3895, one in upper sideband, the other in lower.  Of 
course, everyone was running lots of power, but the two conversations 
didn't bother each other and you could switch between them.  It must 
have been crazy for people with portables that had BFOs but couldn't 
switch sidebands.  It also must have been bad for people on either 
side of the frequency, but I don't think those guys cared much.  I 
wonder if we'll ever see that kind of activity again.  I just don't 
think anyone is that interested any more, regardless of the sun spots.

Steve

On Wednesday 9/20/06 23:38 Phil Scovell wrote:
>Steve,
>
>I do remember those three frequencies but I did most of my listening to
>those frequencies when I lived in western Colorado in 1978 and 79.  Phil,
>known as The Puke, W4MPE, who always identified with the phonetics of,
>Mexico, Panama, and Ethiopia, ran a pair of 3 dash one thousands.  There was
>a WB8, I have forgotten his call now, that I know for a fact ran big high
>power.  There was a guy in Iowa whose call, if I remember correctly, was
>WB0WZG who ran a two holer amp made by Alpha at the time.  It was a pair of
>8877s reported to run 10K output key down.  Lots of those other guys,
>especially on 3895, were so loud, I could copy then over S9 even at 4 PM in
>the afternoon mountain time.  They sure were entertaining at times.  I heard
>a guy calling himself Hotel on the air, I think he was in 8 land, and
>another guy from 3830 I believe it was, built a 25K output A M transmitter
>and ran for a couple of hours on 3900 one night and sang and played music
>and acted like they were spinning records and everything.  I heard this from
>somebody that knew them personally and heard the broadcast.  They signed off
>by singing a duet together I heard.  Wow, those were the good old days.  Of
>course, back then, W7DJv I think was his call from Las Vegas, and wa6GVG
>some place in California spent most nights on the free thinkers frequency
>on, what was it, 3940?  W7DVJ ran a pair of 4 dash one thousands and drove
>it with an old Swan 500C so he was running some power, that's for sure.  I
>had a friend here in Colorado that had W5CWP living some where in
>California, who built lots of big amps for contesters, build him a single 4
>dash one thousand and he had 3200 watts out on 80 meters with it.  It
>weighed 500 pounds.  I tried to buy it once from him but he bargained me
>down to his Henry 2k4 instead that was a backup contest amp his club used.
>By the way, speaking of high power, I was personal friends with the club
>call in Russia of UK9ANN back then.  Willie and I used to work CW together a
>lot.  He was only 22 years old at the time and I was about 27 years old when
>we first met on the air.  I talked him on SSB a lot, too, and one night on
>20 meters, we talked for over two hours.  I had a 4 element 20 meter beam at
>the time.  Willie told me, another Colorado guy who was a big contester for
>K0RF during SSB contests, that his club ran about 10K and that one of the
>Ukraine club stations, a UK5 call but I have forgot the rest of their call,
>ran something like 30K and I believe it, too.  That club stations came on
>one night and I asked him to turn off the power and his signal dropped from
>30 over S9 to about S6 and almost in the mud and it was only about 6 PM in
>the evening mountain time here in Colorado.  Talk about impressive power.
>
>Phil.
>K0NX
>QRP