I never had access to the AM pagers on 35 megacycles, but I found 
several just below 10 meters, probably around 27.8 or 27.9 MC.

Maybe Callon can shed some light on this bit of history too. Until 
sometime in the late 1960's or maybe the early 70's, the Canadian 
Citizens Band was only 19 channels. Their channel 1 was the same as 
channel 4 in the US, which was 27.005. Until additional CB channels 
were added for Canada, the portion of 11 meters from 27.000 down to at 
least channel 1, 26.965, perhaps a bit lower, was still a ham band 
north of the border, and in most of the rest of the world.

I remember hearing a guy named Fred, VE5LR, on 10 meters a lot when I 
was an SWL from 1966 until I was licensed in 1969. I think he was 
disabled in some way, but I'm not absolutely sure about that. Anyway, 
more than once Fred would be talking with a DX station from across one 
pond or the other, and would say, "Let's QSY to 11 meters." Away they 
would go. I would then fire up my 23 channel CB set to listen to them, 
and they would be right there, loud and clear, until they were walked 
on by US stations.

I talked with VE5LR once or twice on 10 meter AM after upgrading to 
general in 1970. We were both running Viking Ranger transmitters.

Now for one more bit of CB noise trivia.

Does anyone remember the remote control transmitters that lived on 
channel 23 until around 1970 or so?

I was told that some of those transmitters ran 300 watts input, and 
were used to operate elevators. Thus, each time you called for an 
elevator, or pressed a floor number, that transmitter would fire up 
with a carrier, send one or more tones, pause about 5 seconds, and 
turn off.

Needless to say, when the skip was in, channel 23 became unusable 
because of those things.

I don't recall ever hearing a diathermy machine, (perhaps misspelled) 
which also lived on 11 meters, but maybe Don Bishop and a few others 
on this list can tell us more about that noise.

I do remember a group of AM hams who camped out around 29.0 on 10 
meters who called themselves "The Displaced Diathermy Dodgers." At 
every opportunity, they would tell you that "Ham Radio went to hell 
when we lost 11 meters."


Mike Duke, K5XU
American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs