Open vs Closed QSOs

[K5UJ]

the thing that comes to mind here is that if OB transmissions are frowned upon, why am I doing all kinds of work to have a station that can let me hang a 350 w. carrier with no time limit?  I thought all this maulish broadcast gear with everything screaming continuous duty was the ne plus ultra of AM.

I like OB transmissions, especially if the guy I'm working is strapping in here with big beautiful full audio.  I'll crank up my EA-2 amp and go puttering around the house.  All I ask is a 2 minute warning before he signs back to me.   With that, he can buzzard for half an hour if he wants.   If I ever work you Don, be sure to have plenty to say. 

p.s.  The K1JJ 5 hurdles article is a great thing for noobs to read.  Helps me.  still working on the recording playback hurdle.

re QSY  Hate to say it but I suffer from inertia.  If everything is all tuned up for 3880 I'll try to get something going there because moving is a 15 minute operation what with tuning the tuner, tuning the rig, tuning the noise null box...getting the  noise phase cancellation box right can take a few minutes.   The appliance RFI at night is so bad I can't call CQ without the RFI nulled out or I won't hear anyone calling me except the strongest stations.

Rob

[KF1Z]

Years ago, there was an "old buzzard" net that met daily on 3945. Not sure if it's still around or even if many of the participants are still around.

Yup, still there at 3945kc.
I think 10:30 am

[W1AEX]

Don,

My favorite thing to do is to call CQ on an open frequency. If someone comes back, I tell them the frequency is in use, and then keep calling CQ. Works every time and keeps the group size down to just one.

Rob W1AEX

(Just kidding Don.)

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

It's best to call Charlie Queen.

[ke7trp]

Whats even more frusterating is when I cant hear all the stations in the big Roundtable.  

If its a net, we should all check in, say a few words, Then pass it on. Once everyone is checked in, the net should be over. Then, you can key up and ask another person to meet at a different open freq to chat.  

I cant stand the boredom of a 20 person net that turns into a huge chat room.  I cant sit for 45 minutes before someone says " oh.. We forgot about TRP"..  I check in and move on.  Whats the point of getting up at 5am to key down once and then listen for an hour while others talk out of turn?  I want to Talk on my radio.. Not listen for hours on end.

Some of my Best AM has been a one on one QSO.  Monday I had a nice chat with a guy in Colorado...I forgot the call and I am away from my log but the last part was HG of his call.  We talked for a nice hour with no interuptions abbout 304 tubes and other AM related subject matter.  

Clark

[K6IC]

Clark wrote,  ... " Monday I had a nice chat with a guy in Colorado...I forgot the call and I am away from my log but the last part was HG of his call.  We talked for a nice hour with no interuptions abbout 304 tubes and other AM related subject matter. 


That had to be Bill,  KD0HG,  who IS here ... His avatar once was a blushing 304 (final),  ...

OOOOPPPPSSSSSSSSSSS ... Some PWer has just Hi-Jacked this thread with a not-too-quick post-in ...

Don,  great-sounding strapping signals invite breakers.  I mostly listen.   Think that others have covered the methods.  Large RTs and Nets can be a bit tedious,  but,  as was  mentioned,  doing something else in the shack while listening can work for me.

73,  and have heard you well here in CA in the past six weeks,  but I'm too PW to get UR attention unless you are already on  the correct Beverage. (whoops,  another off-topic post -- Imma Lid !)  CU on AM  Vic

[ke7trp]

That was him.. Bill.. Nice guy.   Nice sounding rig!

I am on 3885 here at 10pm AZ time.  Timtron is on...  Keyed down for over 10 minutes.. Cant hear the other guy. I chose not to break in

C

[The Slab Bacon]

But all it takes is one person to turn a fast break-in QSO into on old buzzard style roundtable. After a single lengthy transmission, others tend to fall in line

Or fall asleep! !     

[WA3VJB]

Rob, I hope you're doing all that because YOU will enjoy it, not because you want to meet expectations of people on the receiving end. Those expectations vary all over the place, and that's a good thing.

This person's opinion, that which is mine, is you indeed will be setting up  ne plus ultra, çertainlement !

the thing that comes to mind here is that if OB transmissions are frowned upon, why am I doing all kinds of work to have a station that can let me hang a 350 w. carrier with no time limit?  I thought all this maulish broadcast gear with everything screaming continuous duty was the ne plus ultra of AM.
Rob

[The Slab Bacon]

the discussion here old buzznard vs break-in has been a long ongoing debate for years. (Ford vs Chebby thing) With my own personal preference being break in.
Being able to get a comment in in a fast paced break-in session was my incentive to build a high powered rig.

The wild and wooly fast action break in sessions are just too much fun to pass up on. they are never stodgy or stuffy like some of the "old buzzard" roundtables. With 5 or 6 long winded old buzzards making 20 minute monologues each transmission, you have enough time to catch a good nights sleep between this and your next transmission.

I dont mind doing roundtables when the group is small and somewhat orderly, butt.............. I will keep a scratch pad to try to keep track of the order of rotation, but most of the rest of the group is "rotationally challenged" and wont write down at least the one they have been handing it to. Or............you wait a hour for it to come back to you to make a comment and get skipped over because someone was "rotationally challenged"  

2 of the worst of the long-winded old buzzards (No offense intended, Don) is the one who started this thread, and 51-watt Fred. Although as long as I am not part of the QSO (listening only) I could listen to Don talking about transformers all night.

However I think it's time to learn how to hook up relays and how to run PTT  

                                                   The Slab Bacon

[W3RSW]

.... and with the onset of dusk, of evening's coming repast, a mild imbibement or two, the roundtable qso becomes ever more mellow....

-a mild burp or two...  the gentle admonishment suffered...

Even the pw's are tolerated.  It's amazing how stuporous filters cut the haze of static and nebulous gab.

Hence we understand all; make appropriate responses so even the weak feel strong.  -Responses taylored to the half understood, but so fine tuned that we hear the intertwining of carriers as information... the hum and gyre of each's individual signal.

Then in the nick of time a strapesecent signal warps the weft, cleaves the waves and all are happy again.

And  all in hi-fi AM

Like slow roasted coffee beans we're a close tribe of fellows...

[KM1H]

If I have to wait 10 minutes for it to get around I can usually be found in a 1x1 QSO on a nearby frequency . Ive better things to do with my time and I left the hurry up and wait nonsense behind when I left the Navy.

Carl
KM1H

[K5UJ]

W3RSW that was very poetic. 

Paul, building up the maulish stuff is mostly for my own education.  There are daytime QSO opportunities where I can hang 300 w. for 15 minutes.  Last time I did that I stuck a thermometer right outside the expansion steel next to the 3-500ZGs where the air was getting exhausted and measured the temp at 115 degrees.  Plates had been orange for 10 or 15 minutes so I was expecting it to be hotter than that.    115 didn't seem too bad to me.  Be nice in January when the shack temp gets down to 50 degrees.

Rob

[W3RSW]

W3RSW that was very poetic. 

Thank yuh,
thank yuh very much.

T'was an Ode to the After Dinner Net (3733)
brought on by Slab's thoughts.

Most all are welcome at the witchin' hour.
And as they say in WVa land...
  "We were all once PW'ers, hicks and juggers."

Then we have to yield to the Canadian fellows at 6:30 pm local.
   By that time most all have wandered off in the fog of hunger anyway. 

[WBear2GCR]

I think the correct and proper term for walking away from the mic to tune your rig is called pulling an EYE ENN ARR .

Glad I could clear that up...


                _-_-bear

[W3RSW]

...and , oh yes, he's good at it, inbetween crap-outs, that is.

Say, where IS he lately anyway?

[KX5JT]

There is quite a crew that uses 3.880 AM daily here in 5-land. 

QSO's often occuring between 4pm and 7pm Central time and also in the mornings.

WA5KGZ      Perry                        Beaumount (Bevil Oaks), TX
K5SPE         Scotty                       Ozona, TX (yep, that's right)
K5SEE          John                          Houston , TX               
KA5HRF      Butch (Hot Rod Ford)  Lexington, TX
W5DPP       Sammy                       Bryan, TX
W5DWP       Wayne                       Vidor (Snuff Gulley), TX
W5OMR      Geoff                          San Antonio, TX (although often heard mobile)
KA5RHK     Ken                              DeQueen, AR
K5LAR        Larry                            Salado, TX

These are just some I can recall but there are others of course... W5JO Jim in Sulphur, OK visits from time to time....

3.880 AM is alive and well and somewhat buzzardly even! 

[k4kyv]

I still need to call an electrician out to wire up the 220VAC line to the bonus room where everything is located and on a separate breaker.

Why not just go to Home Cheapo or Lowe's and pick up a breaker, some romex and outlet fixtures and install it yourself?  If you have any knowledge about house wiring at all, that's the way to make sure it's done the way you want it, and the installation can be done on your schedule.  If you are not sure how to do house wiring to code specifications, check out some web sites.  There are loads of sites that explain everything in detail very clearly.

I ran the underground wiring to my shack myself.  Rented a small ditch digger, a friend who works at the electric co. gave me some direct burial 200A drop cable, and I repurposed an existing unused 40 amp electric stove circuit, since I had replaced the electric stove with a propane one.  I ran the direct burial cable in plastic conduit, because I always seem to be digging holes round the place and I was afraid I might accidentally dig into it if I just laid the bare cable in the ditch.  I don't have much voltage drop out there.  

The only thing that isn't overkill is the 40 amp service branch, but I have manage to run all my stuff off it for almost 20 years now, and never have tripped the breaker.

Are any of the guys still operating on 3880? Ozona Bob started that AM frequency hangout spot back in the 1980's because the guys up in the northeast were just too far away during the early evening hours and they would usually ignore stations down south. I haven’t heard anyone on 3880 from here in CA, but I occasionally hear the guys on 3885. As a mater of fact there is an AMer just a few blocks away who runs a solid-state amplifier (he sounds just like a CBer with fuzzy audio) on 3885. I heard him last night.

I often hear activity from the west coast on 3870.  Is there regular activity there every night?  Sometimes the stations come in here pretty well when there is no eastern slopbucket on the frequency.

[ke7trp]

3870 is monday and wednesday nights for the AMI nets.  Lots of folks on.  Should hear them nice.  The band is long in AZ.  Timtron and others start comming up around 9:30 PM my time.. Fade out for an hour and come back strong from 10:30PM on. 

Clark

[The Slab Bacon]

Here’s what you do to weed out all of the lightweights and fast break AM QSO's.

1. Break in with you callsign.

2. When it’s finally your turn throw the plate switch.

3. While your plate switch is thrown do the following, but don’t stop transmitting.

a. Tune your transmitter some more.

b. Say just a minute and go to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee.

c. When you come back tune the transmitter some more.

d. If it’s been longer than 10 minutes repeat your call sign, but keep transmitting.

e. Take a few sips of coffee.

f. After the final(s) are good a hot start talking until you get tired.

4. Let off of the plate switch and repeat steps 1 thru 3 until everything slows down to a good old fashioned enjoyable slow old buzzard QSO

P.S. I am assuming of course that your transmitter is capable of at least 400 watts to 500 watts of carrier power and is of the robust tube-type design

good luck tryin that with the northeast group. You would just get "squashed like a bug" and the qso would just keep moving along. You would just be doing us a favor by quieting down some of the background static crashes for us.

"slow old buzzard qso" hmmmm.......................... do you have a slow old buzzard mind??

                                                                the Slab Bacon

P.S. it is always permissable to tune up on top of an AM qso, as long as you are going to join that qso.   

[k7yoo]

Great topic Don--I am glad you brought it up.  What I see from all of the responses is that we (AMForum) are generally a considerate & thoughtful group. Now that I know you have a 3690 xtal I will start listening down there. I tend toward the premise that the "window" is a calling area and trying to close up the QSO would be swimming upstream. Like many, I get irritated with the guys that get on with a TS 940 and "discover" the AM switch position at 9pm on Sat nite while trolling across 3885. I guess the rules (if there are any) might be:
      know how to use the radio before hitting the PTT switch
      have something meaningful & intelligent to add to the EXISTING conversation
      don't be PW (see rule 1 again)
      don't let ego overcome common sense--if you make a quick break to say howdy and aren't invited
      into the QSO don't get hurt feelings--just move to another frequency. Demanding a slot in the lineup
      is no different than trying to break into a conversation at any other venue--not always welcomed or
      appropriate. Too many people take it personally, which is totally ridiculous

           
If the above rules seem unreasonable enjoy being an SWLer

[k4kyv]

There is a pretty good AM group on 3870 Saturday mornings here. I also hear them sometimes during the evening, but there is another guy just a few blocks away who moves around quite a bit on AM with a SS amp. I swear, he sounds just like a CBer with fuzzy and distorted audio. Its obviously a SS linear choked up all the way.

Last time I spent any considerable amount of time in CA was in the mid 60's.  Back then there was still plenty of AM activity in the eastern part of the country on 75; AM hadn't "died" yet.  I listened a few times from the west coast, and there was practically zero AM to be  heard day or night.

But after incentive licensing went into effect, AM practically disappeared in this part of the country, too. I think it reached its low point in 1970-72, then began to "come back" in about 1973-4.  AM has been coming back for decades now, for many more years than it was ever "dead".

Kinda makes me chuckle when I hear someone like W8-NoBalls running off at the mouth about how outmoded AM is and that it ought to be banned.

[pe1mph]

Don!

You may use more 3705!
All AM lovers are welcome...

We take our time to talk with AM stations!


Greetings,

PE1MPH
The Netherlands

[k4kyv]

I listened on 3705 last night about 0430Z but there was slopbucket activity about 2 kHz away.  So I tried out my new 3735 xtal, called CQ, and worked two AM stations.

I normally operate VFO control, but it's fun to run rockbound from time to time.  Just picked up some old-buzzard style xtals for 3685, 3690, 3725 and 3735.

[WA3VJB]

I hope it's not THAT quiet, wow.
Aren't we coming into prime time winter radio season ?

Then again, I'm only on 40m right now myself, cough cough