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