The AM Forum

Until today when listening to a guy on 10 meters, I had not heard of this station. Quite impressive to say the least. Many great pictures of the setup at this link.

http://www.qsl.net/ne6i/w6am/index.html (http://www.qsl.net/ne6i/w6am/index.html)

Do you know of any other old buzzard stations?

Cool station.  It's the DON WALLACE MUSEUM RADIO CLUB. :)

I never worked Don on the air, but I had the privilege of meeting him in person at an ARRL Convention many years ago--a very friendly and personable fellow.

Walt

My OT friend in LA Steve Jensen told me he used to visit Don once in a while. Whenever he came to let him and his XYL in Don would pick her up and give her a kiss.
Don used to let friends operate his rigs.
I was told some yuppies complained about the antennas once and Don gave them a choice. Would you rather look at the antennas with horses grazing under them or would you like to see rows of houses? That ended that.
Mark the Q and I went looking for his place in '81 or '82 and drove around P.V. but never found it, bummer

I worked him once, but not when he was at home on the rhombic farm.  It happens I have the QSL from him on top of my ER bookcase in the dining room (which is never used for dining).   Here it is..."W6AM like 6 AM in the Morning."  Actually mine is for W6AM/M.  It was for a QSO when he was mobile in his Eldorado with his mobile kilowatt:

K5UJ QSO 14 MHz CW 28 Oct 1977 14027 KHz 0135Z 579.  I think I'd had my call sign about 6 months by then.  Then, over to the right side of the card is a printed paragraph:  Mobile, 1 KW Swan amplifier, whip antenna, 400, 3 VFOs for cross banding, Palomar Keyer.  Estes shielding, bonded front and rear hood engine and tailpipe.  213C.  Thanks for the QSO at 55 miles per hour on freeway driving near Long Beach.  73  [signed] Don.

There's a photo of his car from QST Nov. 1967 page 60.

Anyone recall the ads for Standard HTs that had a photo of him holding his hand over his ears?  "Don Wallace Hates Noise"

Yes, I remember those Standard HT ads featuring Don.

I also remember working him several times in the late '60s, both from his car and at home. His use of a bug key on the seat beside him at 55MPH was impressive, but his antenna farm was even more amazing in those days. He had 13 rhombics pointing to all parts of the globe on top of a 1200ft hill only 2 miles from the coast. That's a lot of work and a lot of real estate. He had 120 acres to play with, according to his QSL card.

Does anyone have a copy of the 1933 Short-Wave Manual that Don wrote and published? It makes interesting reading and the ads are also worth checking out.

   

I use to work Don on 160 meters.  In fact, I worked him the night we got the entire band back.  Everyone was waiting for the moment when we could leave the lower 1800 to 1850 space and go all the way up to 20000.  That night Don was having a blast working stations. He and Stu, W1BB were some of my favorite contacts on Top Band.  Stu was mainly on CW. 
Joe, W3GMS 

You can own a part of the history. I posted here due to the relationship to the thread...


http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALPHA-77SX-HF-LINEAR-AMPLIFIER-DON-WALLACE-W6AM-CUSTOM-BUILT-ETO-/270844528425?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0f978729

Amazing....another turn key solution. 
Joe, W3GMS

The Wallace Ranch is still there in name, quite a lasting tribute. Click on the street view. A lot of change in twenty years.



http://maps.google.com/maps?q=28503+highridge+rd.,+rancho&hl=en&ll=33.771237,-118.380615&spn=0.000018,0.013636&sll=33.771769,-118.381257&layer=c&cbp=13,260.73,,0,11&cbll=33.771772,-118.381234&gl=us&hnear=28503+Highridge+Rd,+Rancho+Palos+Verdes,+California+90275&t=h&z=17&vpsrc=0&iwloc=A&panoid=VJ5vyunjban9cakmDTTLmw

More info on the site

http://www.insidesocal.com/history/2010/12/espionage-on-the-home-front.html

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-06-02/news/hl-15277_1_ham-radio

No. But I've worked K1JJ.

My brother had a copy of the book about his Life and station. I really enjoyed reading it.  Its highly recomended.  One of my elmers W8QBG used to work Don over the years.  Said he would Just BLAST through over everyone, make the contact and be done.  Very nice guy that always smoked a pipe :)  He also talked about how Don invented a rotating table.  Motorized.  I understand he had alot of kids at the dinner table.

I have an original copy of his book on SW antennas and as a suprize I found two original QSL cards inside the book.  I can post pictures tomorrow when I have time. there is alot of cool information in the SW antenna book. Including the idea of twisting ladder line. 

C

That's interesting. what did he have to say about it?  With the window line I use, there is no option about twisting. I did give it some thought from time to time as to weather it should be twisted like it's owner?

What did Don Wallace do for a living?

http://www.wallaceandwallace.net/17801.html

One of the better QST covers from days of yore featured a picture of Stu's station. He was one of those guys who would send a transmitter to someone in some obscure land so that he could work them on 160.

I always liked his callsign plates with the tiny '1' stuffed between the large letters.

The current aerial view of Don's former property made me dizzy. All those people shoved into the area that was once open and sported poles with rhombics.

Todd,
Concerning Stu W1BB, when I first got on top band with my Ranger, he sent me a welcome package out.  It consisted of all kind of idea's for various antennas.  Besides his QSL card, he had several other cards made up for operating hints.  He always made the newbies feel welcome.  Definitely a style that needs to be carried forward.
 
The QSO I had with Don Wallace was pleasant but a bit more sterile. 

Joe, W3GMS
 

 

Guys, Here are some photos of the original W6AM book and the two QSL cards I found tucked inside the book.  Enjoy

Thanks for the QSLs.  He sure liked rhombics didn't he.  Also had a curtain antenna.  I never knew about that.  Lucky guy--overlooked the ocean and had 3 phase service.  Neg. peak limiting way back then.   He had a heck of a lot of real tall phone poles.  His feedline support poles were 20 feet high.  I heard somewhere that it took a crew of volunteers around 12 months to take everything down.  Over 100 wood poles over 100 feet high.  When the big gun tall ship strappers go, there's a lot to take down.

So now it's all houses eh?  Sad.

Some points of his 1933 book:

After testing over 700 antennas it was found that the elimination of ALL GROUNDS is the most important factor in the stations performance.  Not one ground can be hooked up. He found that grounds just increase noise and noise is the enemy.  Step

1, Remove ALL grounds including utility, cables and water pipes.

The Ideal "compromise" antenna is the wallace antenna.  This is a ladder line fed dipole.  The example listed shows 33Ft each leg horizontal out of 14 enamle wire. The feeders are 66FT, 6 inches, of open wire line of the same 14 enamel wire.

EVERY 2 ft the Open wire line must be transposed using fleron glazed porcelain transposition blocks.   The blocks can be 2 inch to 8 inch square.  Does not matter. You can use bakelite but some loss will be seen. 

Built to these specs you will have an IDEAL SW antenna system. 

Wire size,  6, 8 or 10 is suggested for top portion of longer antennas and it must be used with 12 for feeders.   

OR number 12 for both.

OR 14 for both on smaller antennasr

You must use Insulated wires. Great loss within 48 hours of install will happen on bare wire (he lived by the ocean).  In the military they would clean wire by hand with steel wool. 

Stranded wire is superior for BC band and low band use but should NOT be used for higher bands! It was found that higher frequencys would jump around on stranded wire decreasing effeciency.


I am now tempted to lower the antenna and replace both legs of my bare stranded wire with 14 solid enamel wire which I have here. 

He does mention that some of these gains are 2%. But if you do all of this the gains add up. 

All grounds are useless??????   I bet you guys wont agree.

C 

The transposition blocks:

C

Transposing the feeders may have been important with Don's installation since it seems he had a number of feeders running near each other.  Transposing helps to keep the line balanced if it runs near other objects.  You can do the same thing by twisting the feeder as it's installed.

Fred

According to the book that is not the reason.  Some search on the web turned up some discussion and websites where it talked about reducing near by noise that is picked up by parellel tuned feeders.  This noise is eliminated by transposing the line.  This coincides with the book.  NO grounds, transposed line, all in an effort to reduce static and man made noise so you can hear the station you are trying to work. 

I can lower my antenna easily.  I am bored and the weather is nice.  I am just trying to think of an easy way to do this without having  to manuafacturer plastic blocks.  My 600 ohm line will short if twisted.  Simply twising 450 does not transpose the wires.

Might be fun to test!  I just do not like to start down this path with no way to switch back and forth or any way to take any measurement that confirms the theory.

C

Wallace's approach may have made sense for his station in 1933. It does not today.

How so Steve?

C

In theory, feeders that are perfectly balanced should not act like an antenna and pick up signals and probably noise also.  Transposing the lines helps to keep the feeders balanced, especially since Don had more than one set of feeders running on his poles.  He would have seen some improvement in noise pick up at his QTH by transposing the feeders.

There may be more to this practice.  I haven't read his book or anything else on this subject.

Maybe we'll get some more opinions.

Fred

Agreed.  Its a neat idea from what I believe was a man who knew what he was talking about. For someone that had the property it would be a neat design to try for his recieve antenna.

C

He was using long runs of open-wire line with 1933 vintage receivers (poorly shielded) for starters. Also, little is known about what type of ground system(s) he actually tried and what sorts of measurements he actually did.

The reality of today is that all big gun stations use ground, all commercial and military comm sites use ground. Read the Navy docs on grounding, read the Bell System docs on grounding, read the RCA docs on grounding. They all say something drastically different than Wallace. Unless you want to believe he was right and the rest of the world was wrong, I'm not sure of your point.

Bear in mind Wallace used Rhombics long after stacked arrays were shown to be superior, so he was clearly not always correct. Was he a prominent amateur radio op and an accomplished man? For sure. He was not God though.

His antennas show feeder length.  66 ft 6 inches. I dont call that a long run.  The book was before his Rhombics.  They did not exist at his station then.  The book also shows verticals and of course they are grounded. Running no grounds is suggested for SW RECEIVING using Transposed OWL.

C

I don't often agree with Steve, but on this occasion I tend to go along with what he says. Don was undoubtedly a great operator and back in the 1920s and '30s he was obviously up there with technical developments, otherwise he wouldn't have won the Hoover Cup back then when he was 9ZT.

Having said that, you've just got to look at Don's fuzzy logic about small improvements in his 1933 Short Wave Manual to see that his math wasn't quite what it should have been, even for the '30s.

Since he was a contester, though, there might have been a good technical reason for staying with rhombics as long as he did - you don't have to wait for the rotator to swing the beam round to peak the DX station. Switching rhombics is a lot quicker!

Dave.

Oh, I forgot to add a copy of 9ZT's QSL card to my last post. Some of you might get a kick out of seeing it.

The part that appears to be left out in his approach is atmospheric noise. Even if you could make all those 2% improvements (doubtful in 1933, let alone today), you would still be limited by atmospheric noise over much of the HF bands.

Don multiplied his 2% improvements to come up with some 2000% improvement??????

He should have added his 2% improvements.  X + N(.02X).  This is closer to the truth.  Possible one could say that you should add the first 2% to the total and then add the next 2% of the new total and so on.

 X + .02X + .02(X + .02X)....so on,  with X always becoming the new total.

I think this looks right.

Now that I think about it,  this is the same as compound interest.

It's too early for me, the side of my brain that I sleep on is just waking up.

Fred

I think its sometimes hard for some hams to stop thinking about transmitting antennas and focus on specialized recieving antennas.   

Yes. I agree that his example of 2% seems flawed. The point was the same as one made to me years ago.  A guy told me he would not walk across the room for a DB in which I replied, I would walk across the room 10 times.

Thanks for posting the old QLS card!

C

 

He's probably missed out other important things as well, Steve, but my point is that anyone who can get 2048% from a series of eleven 2% improvements should not be taken that seriously on technical matters.

He should have used 1.02 raised to the 11th power, of course, and that's approximately 1.2434 or nearly a whole dB in power terms. Doesn't sound as convincing an improvement as 2048% does it? There again, Don was a salesman, and judging by the wealth he accrued I think we can safely say he was quite a good one.

Dave.

I worked Don in the early 80s and received his QSL card.  I either read or someone told me years ago that Don bought the land for his Rhombic farm from Howard Hughes. Don't know if that's true.

The Swan users web site includes a couple of photos of Don, said to be taken while he was visiting the Swan plant in Oceanside, California in the 60s:

http://www.angelfire.com/ny2/hamradio/gallery005.html (http://www.angelfire.com/ny2/hamradio/gallery005.html)

73,
Brad

There was a piece in Q Street a few years ago. I think that he bought the property from Press Wireless.


klc

Yes, the rhombic field was the old Press Wireless receiver site.
all 125 acres of it... :-\ :-* ::)

might be a little off topic but now you can work one of his amps

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALPHA-77SX-HF-LINEAR-AMPLIFIER-DON-WALLACE-W6AM-CUSTOM-BUILT-ETO-/270848705990?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0fd745c6

A rhombic is just about the most inefficient use of antenna real estate there is.

I zoomed in on that site and cant believe people can live like that. The last time I was in CA for any length of time was the late 80's and the density even in lower priced areas wasnt anywhere that bad. Its time for that Big One to refresh the gene pool ::)

Did I work W6AM?  I think so during some contests, probably SS. Maybe also in the 50's when I had no idea who he was.

Carl