Stability, Accuracy, Purity – The “1929-Type” Station

Hiram Percy Maxim long considered precise frequency control to be the biggest challenge in amateur radio.1 All at once it was set to become everyone’s concern when the new international treaty would take effect in 1929. “As we climb up into the super frequencies, as we do when we use forty meters and below, frequency precision becomes a problem of the first magnitude,” he wrote in Summer 1928. But he was certain that amateurs could devise new techniques and figure … Continue reading

Rare International Sport

The Transcons, Transatlantics, relay speed record attempts, short wave tests, and the other group-oriented on-air events all owed their popularity to shared goals and objectives, but they were also simply fun to operate and involved an element of competition. The festive atmosphere generated by all the radio bugs coming on the air at once was not lost on the organizers who named these events parties. Described as a “worldwide contact contest” the ARRL planned an International Relay Party for spring, … Continue reading