The AM Forum

The 2005 Heavy Metal Rally

The annual Electric Radio Heavy Metal Rally will be running on Friday, December 30. This year there should be no conflicts with the Christmas or New Years Holidays.
Suggested Frequencies: 1885 Kc east of Mississippi, 1900 Kc West; 3830 Kc, 3870-3890 Kc, nationwide, 7290 Kc.

As in years past, this is not a traditional Ham radio call sign echo. Although the Heavy Metal Rally was originally intended to include only big tube-type equipment, it should now be seen as a night for friendly AM QSO’s and is open to anyone using restored broadcast, military, homebrew, any commercial Ham gear meeting the requirements, i.e. Johnson Invader 2000, Viking Desk KW, Globe King 500, Collins KW-1, etc. and big solid state Class-E equipment. This includes using a solid-state exciter as long as the PA is Heavy Metal, such as a 300 pound Henry 8K! I want as much participation in the rally as possible. Obviously, we would all like to work as much tube-type Heavy Metal as possible, and a point advantage is given to tube equipment.

The rules for this year’s Heavy Metal Rally are the same as before, with one exception: Scoring: You get 1 point per contact on each different band. If you work the same station on both 80 and 160 it counts for two points. You get 1 additional point per contact if you are using all tube-type heavy metal. 1 point for each different state worked. 1 point for each letter or email received from Hams or SWLs with positive comments about a station’s signal or sound quality. So, if someone works 20 stations in 10 different states with a tube rig, the score is: 20 contacts + 10 states + 20 tube points = 40.

If two emails are received complaining that “KØXYZ” broke their S-meters but sounded darn good doing it, that’s 32 points total.

The winner should be running a rig weighing 250 pounds or running at least 250 watts. This includes big homebrew, military, and vintage commercial Ham gear, and Class E solid state rigs as long as they meet the qualifications. For example, some vintage Navy rigs weighed in at over 300 pounds, but only produced 100 watts of carrier—that’s still Heavy Metal! (The “or” statement is intended as an illustration, and should not be misread as an intent to keep someone out.)

You can’t win unless you’re running a Heavy Metal rig—NO exceptions!

This is Heavy Metal night! Everyone is welcome to participate with smaller rigs, but the winner needs to be using Heavy Metal.

Completed logs should be sent by email to Ray@ERmag.com or by US mail to the Electric Radio address printed inside the rear cover. Please have your point totals calculated when you send in your log, and be sure to mention the equipment used during the rally.

The winning top scorer this year will *probably* receive the Heavy Metal trophy. All participants sending in their logs will receive a nice participation certificate from Electric Radio, which will be similar to the certificate sent out in other years.

73, Ray, NØDMS

Hi Ray

Wow it's that time of year already, time for The Heavy Metal Rally !

I can't wait

Thanks 

As a suggestion, how about an Official Electric Radio Log made on Microsoft Excel that we could download. I know some people don't have computers, but those of us that do, could mail them to those without.

De W2PFY

how about adding a few runner up awards this year- like longest most boring transmission with 40 over 9 carrier while only running 40% modulation on a noisy band, longest pissweak transmission, most distorted unmodified audio, most obnoxious elitest attitude, most checkins ignored during a callup, least copyable due to total lack of modulation above 2000 HZ, and overall ability to ignore comments from stations worked? that way many others in the contest could win a prize. we need to keep this interesting to help keep those numbers up!

I guess I won;t qualify for the HMR unless I can get  my  Glob Kink (or something better) up and running by Dec 30th. Otherwise I could  probably qualify for a few of those awards like "most  boring transmission" and "most comments ignored". I am good at both of those.

 

Now thats a great idea.......... ;D

Chris - I'm with you. Don't forget Pissweak and Hyellowy" with an on the air crapout!
Joe N3IBX

I rather favor the "Radio Barnacle" award.

(http://www.goldstorm.com/great_lakes_nautical/coral/images/Barnacle.jpg)

Paul said:
You're not nice Paul ;D

Ray, good job, except the rules permit someone using an Icom 706 strapped to a Chevy engine block to qualify.

Hope to check in with the Collins 30K-4 and the old Federal 167B Marine Transmitter.  Both weigh over 400 lbs, so I guess they qualify for "light" heavy metal status.  Maybe sometime we will add a BC xmtr to the stable.   ;)

73,  Jack, W9GT 

Hope to load the lowly class e final back into the rack today. First Round on Wednesday I saw 10 seconds of beautiful signal then nothing. I pulled it all apart to find the HP VHF signal generator I use as a VFO was set for the output too high and locked up the input prescaler.
with a little luck I'll be on 160 tonight and I have a lot of pent up old buzzard transmissions to make.......Maybe I need to send the XYL for prune juice and cut it with red stuff. 

A dozen stations n the first hour !!! (0015-0125 GMT)
Channel Master:  Bob W2ZM on the BA2.5K, a pair of 4-1000 modulating another pair.

(http://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/McMartin2-5K.jpg)
Thanks, Barry Mishkind's "Old Radio" page.
www.oldraadio.com (http://www.oldraadio.com)


But wait, you want Heavy Metal ?
Brown, W1NZR was running a 2200 pound National receiver, an FRR 24, and said what he has is only HALF the receiver system as configured. Now that's impressive.

Bob ZM was also the channel master of 160. I was monitoring with an accurate S meter.

Yes Frank, same here.
Final measurment.....
S meter needle bent at a 71 degree angle after repeated banging against the peg.

FRAUD IN THE HEAVY METAL RALLY

No way does Brent's class E weigh 400 pounds.  Maybe it cost 400 pounds by the time you count up all the prototypes he built, but weigh 400 pounds?   On Saturn or Jupiter maybe.

I'm calling the cops.

Jon

Well gee, Jon, I only know what I hear on the radio.

I would have diplomatically suggested maybe he was sitting on the rig keeping his hind-end warm, but that would also prove bogus since there's no real heat out of that thing, except for a little while when it burned up that time.

A class E rig or plastic radio/amp setup is NOT a heavy metal rig - even if it weighs 7000 lbs and/or puts out 5kw AND sounds like a million bucks to boot.

I have made this decree in order to clear up any confusion that may exist!!  There!!    :o

Then stop calling them heavy metal radios and say what you really mean - an all tube rig, that weights more than x and produces more than y power and was made before year z, and is not a linear (unless it's a typical early 30's vintage setup with grid or heising modulation followed by a linear amp stage, even though many heavy metal types wouldn't know about such an arrangement and its historic significance). This will clearly define the field and weed out all those stations using modern solid state audio processing and mics, and/or modern RF drivers. This stuff must be kept pure.

Nah, go all the way Steve.
NO ONE born after 1950 who weighs less than 250 pounds can be a boner fide Heavy Metal operator

Glad to be a non buzzard by a year

Jon....you funny GI, YES! the rig weighs over 400lbs....perhaps you haven't seen the phototgraphs on my web site. Maybe you should take a look at Gary's rig under construction?....p.s. rig runs alot more than 350 watts too....PHHHT! :-*

Brent W1IA

It should be fun!

See ya all on 75M,  Dec 30th!!

T

Wait until next year.  :P