Stew Perry

[UR5FIL]

" еще поучаствую в Стью Перри...   и всё". Первый раз услышал сегодня. И вот уже наткнулся на симптомы болезни:

 

 

 

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Perhaps I can best describe how you get this disease by explaining how I caught it. It was back in 1972. I was 18 years old and had been a ham for almost 5 years. There was a contest coming up (an event where you try to talk to as many people as you can in a weekend), and it was a 160 meter contest. I had no transmitter for this band, but I did have a receiver. I borrowed a "transmitter" from a friend (a Messinger Signal Shifter), not much of one, but it did run 5 watts (about enough to light up a flashlight). The contest started on Friday and I was able to work six states with it the first night: Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Idaho. I was operating in Southern California at the time.

 

The next day was spent trying to improve the antenna system (more wires) and the transmitter (modify my 80 meter transmitter to be an amplifier). With my improved signal, I was able to work Kentucky!! The callsign of the station I worked was K4GSU, who is now N4AR, and I hear him on TopBand almost every night 25 years later. He obviously has a bad case as well.

 

More improvements were made, and I finally worked all states from my parent's suburban lot in Southern California. My antenna wire was made out of invisible 30 gauge wire and was strung across the street to a telephone pole (bet you didn't know about that one dad).

 

A few years later, a friend of mine (Marty Woll, WB6VZI/N6VI) and I, went to my parent's mountain cabin for some 160 meter contests. We strung antennas at the top of the 100 foot trees and were able to work Japan! One of the callsigns we worked was JA3ONB - who I actually worked this morning on 2 January 1997. He is obviously another poor soul who has this disease.

 

When I moved to Oregon, I finally was able to put up a "proper" TopBand antenna. David, AA6RX, was visiting me and we modified one of my towers to act like an antenna for 160 meters. The results were surprising. We worked several station in Japan the next morning, and in the winter of 1985/86, I heard my first European! I can still remember hearing the letters "9AMO" which were coming from Pierre, HB9AMO in Geneva. I didn't work Pierre (until 11 years later), but soon after I worked Jose, EA3VY (Spain), for my first European country. It was followed shortly by Dave, G3SZA (England), who now lives in Colorado. I remember one night the next October (like it was yesterday) where I worked FOUR new European countries in one evening: including Finland (OH1XX). All of these people mentioned have been heard on topband by myself in the past week or two.

 

Perhaps I should now explain the symptoms of the disease. They are as follows:

 

Desire to be on the radio at sunrise.
Desire to be on the radio at sunset.
Desire to be on the radio at all times in between Sunset and Sunrise.
Desire to struggle for months to work a single station in a new country. In extreme cases, this might go on for more than a year. A good example is Riki, 4X4NJ in Israel who tried for two years to finish off working all the states in USA.

Never being satisfied with the antenna system and constantly trying new ones.

Only comes down to see the family after working a new country (to gloat). During the rare fantastic opening, will come down after each new country and hold up fingers indicating how many new countries were worked so far. These events are equivalent to multiple orgasms, and occur about once or twice in a century.

Drinks lots of water before going to bed with the sole purpose of waking up in the wee hours of the morning to see if a new country can be found.

Has problems getting to work on time during the winter months.

Sends equipment and wire to people in unworked countries, hoping that the end result will be their QSL card on the wall.

Spend thousands of dollars going to rare countries just so other people can work it. This is a problem, as they don't get credit for the country themselves!!

If these symptoms persist for more than one sunspot cycle (every 11 years), then you should strongly suspect TopBand disease.

 

Currently, the only known cure for symptoms of the disease is exposure to lots of sunspots. This increases the absorption of TopBand signals in the ionosphere, and also makes the higher bands more attractive. Most people (except those with very bad cases) will spend time on the less masochistic bands when high sunspots are present.

 

Please understand, this only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. It is possible for the disease to go into hiding for a number of years. Earl, K6SE, had the symptoms really bad in the 1970's. Then he was not heard from for almost 15 years. I had thought about looking him up to see if he had found a cure, but I heard him just a couple of nights ago trying to work a station in Sweden.

 

If you know someone who has this disease, don't invite them over to any dinner parties during the months of December or January. They will constantly be looking at their watch, and using your computer to log into the packet cluster to see what stations have been reported on the band. If you know someone married to a person who has the disease, it is okay to invite them over (alone). This will be greatly appreciated by the TopBand addict and will be repaid during the summertime with equal kindness.

For furthur information on TopBand, subscribe to the topband mailing list. Send a subscribe message to topband-request@contesting.com. You can also view the messages posted to this support group at http://www.contesting.com/_topband.

 

There are other strains of the disease which I should mention. The symptoms are equally devastating:

Moon bounce - communicating by bouncing signals off the moon.

VHF/UHF DXing - using frequencies similar to your TV.
QRP - limiting your output power so people can't hear you very well - good for sadists too.
If you are thinking of exposing yourself to TopBand, you should be aware of the risks. You might find yourself only valuing your 40 meter beam as top loading for your tower.

 

Thanks for listening.

Larry "Tree" Tyree N6TR

 

 

 

 

Stew Perry, 1904, первый официальный позывной 1BB (не успел добежать, 1AA перехватили ))) Позже W1BB. 

 

 

История здесь 

 

There was a nice article in the 1977 73 Magazine about Stew Perry himself.  Here are scans of that article (thanks to WA5POK): Page58, Page59, Page60, Page61, Page62.  Here are some comments by K1ZM on VE1ZZ.

 

29 декабря - Big Stew Сontest

 

73!