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ON the ULTRA HIGHS- a History of Amateur Radio VHF Activities

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ON the ULTRA HIGHS- a History of Amateur Radio VHF Activities VHF HISTORICAL NOTES (Working Title) ON THE ULTRA HIGHS - A History of Amateur Radio VHF Activities - (Formal Title) Kevin Kaufhold, W9GKA Most Recent Update 12-2008 COPYRIGHT Copyright by Kevin C. Kaufhold. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kevin C. Kaufhold. The material contained herein may be referenced and cited to in other publications, provided proper credit is given. Many of the figures and diagrams contained in this are the copyright of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), and have been reprinted with permission of the ARRL. The figures cannot be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the ARRL. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ON THE ULTRA HIGHS .................................................................................................. 1 COPYRIGHT.................................................................................................................. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................ 3 PREFACE....................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1 - A Scientific Inquiry of Electricity................................................................ 5 Chapter 2 – The Birth of Wireless ................................................................................ 18 Chapter 3 - The Law Arrives ........................................................................................ 38 Chapter 4 - The Beginnings of U.H.F........................................................................... 51 Chapter 5 - Three New Bands....................................................................................... 62 Chapter 6 – Exploration of UHF Propagation .............................................................. 70 Amateurs in WWII........................................................................................................ 82 Post WWII Amateur Activity & The Cold War ........................................................... 82 From Sputnik to the Early 1980’s................................................................................. 88 The Era of the Grid Squares.......................................................................................... 97 The No-Code Tech Explosion .................................................................................... 102 The Present and Future of VHF Activity.................................................................... 106 A Few Notes on International VHF Contests ............................................................. 108 3 PREFACE The material presented in this text has taken on a life of its own. It started as a bullet- point, outline type of supplement to the VHF Contest Records that I had put together for the Society of Midwest Contesters. It was thought that the VHF Contest Records should be kept in an historical perspective, with particular reference to major changes in the VHF contest rules. From there, this document then gradually moved to a historical review of all VHF activity on the amateur bands, and began to be known as the “VHF Historical Notes”. Pictures were added along the way, and the outline format was changed to regular text. Intensive research was also done on the explanatory factors for VHF contest log variations, resulting in the publication of several articles on the topic. Most recently, the material has been broken up into chapters, so that it can be more easily handled and downloaded from the SMC web-site. In its current format, the quality of the material has been so upgraded in terms of regular text, pictures, extensive footnotes, and references, that I have developed a more formal title to the document. While the “VHF Historical Notes” is still an apt description of the document on a working basis, I am currently referring to the text formally as: “On the Ultra-Highs - a History of Amateur Radio VHF Activities”. This formal title is in honor of the early VHF experimenters and the original VHF column in QST that started in December 1939. Every effort has been made to be as historically accurate and thorough as possible. Every VHF historical reference available from the American Radio Relay League has been reviewed, including all QST’s back to 1922, and several books relevant to VHF amateur radio activities. Various VHF conference proceedings of the regional amateur radio societies, ARRL Handbooks, VHF manuals of both the ARRL and the RSGB, FCC Rules and Regulations, and Federal Law pertinent to amateur radio have also been reviewed. The first few chapters are available on-line by clicking on the hyperlink in the Table of Contests. The bulk of material is still in outline form, and can also be accessed by clicking the hyperlink “Outline of Remaining Material, 1930’s to present”. Please note that I have taken many pictures from either QST or other ARRL publications, with permission from the League. In using the pictures, I have retained the text box describing the picture in the original article. Original text boxes nicely convey the manner in which pictures were initially presented in the articles, so efforts have been taken to copy the text messages as well as the original pictures. 4 Chapter 1 - A Scientific Inquiry of Electricity Before there could be radio, there had to be electricity. A very brief summary of the great milestones towards the full development of electrical phenomenon is therefore in order. The Greeks initially discovered electricity almost 2500 years ago when Thales of Miletus noticed that amber attracted small objects when rubbed with fur or silk. The Greeks called amber “electron”, and the word “electric” was described as “being like amber”, or having the ability to attract other objects. 1 While Thales had inadvertently stumbled upon static electricity, he and other Greeks of the era believed that certain inanimate substances, such as magnetized rock and amber, possessed a psyche, or soul, that was responsible for attraction of objects. Many centuries elapsed before this “soul” would be identified as static electricity and magnetism. 2 While the Greeks were describing a psyche to electrical phenomenon, the ability of the ancients to communicate long distances involved much more traditional methods. The Bible (Jeremiah 6:1) notes that signal flares were used around Bethlehem. In 522 BC, the Persian army used a relay message system by shouting from hilltops. A few years’ later, Athenian runners sent messages between battlefields. The great lighthouse at Alexander used a reflecting mirror of burnished metal. Mirrors were also employed to signal messages across distances – using what was known as a heliograph. Beacon fires were used in 427 BC to warn a military fleet of Spartan vessels that Athenian triremes were heading towards them and preparing to attack. Beacon fires were also noted in Homer’s Iliad. Rudimentary forms of optical telegraphs and “torch” telegraphy used in and around Greece for similar military activities were in existence by 150 to 360 BC. Roman Legions may have used signal beacons around 113 AD. Lantern- carrying kites were used in 500 AD as communication devices during the siege of Nanking, China. On the North American continent, Mississippian Indians built signal mounds around 1100 AD to communicate to their central cities, such as the massive urban complex at Cahokia, as well as at other locations. 3 Back on the Asian continent, Genghis Khan in 1206 used horse or pony stations spaced 25 miles apart to send messages across his vast empire. In 1588, beacon fires were used to mobilize the English against the Spanish Armada. Scientific study into the properties of electricity began in 1600 when William Gilbert, a physician to the royalty of England, published the first treatise on electrical and magnetic properties. 4 Gilbert had read the observations of Thales, and began experimenting with the attraction and repulsion of non-metallic rods. Gilbert coined the term “electricity” from these experiments. He may have been the first person to suggest a connection between static electricity and magnetism. A century later, Sir Isaac Newton penned his famous “Optics”, in which he set forth his theory of light. Newton thought that light involved wave-like behavior that could cause vibrations in “ether”. Newton’s work was the beginning of numerous studies on the properties of light. During the 1700’s, several observations piqued the curiosities of scientifically inclined minds. Iron-laden rock known as lodestone could make a magnetic compass needle move. Two metal plates placed in an acid solution could heat up a wire connected to the plates, and a nearby compass needle would swing back and forth. Some people felt that electricity and magnetism had to therefore be related in some manner. Then, in a simple but ultimately very important discovery, it was found in 1729 that that static electricity could be stored for later use and experimentation in what were known as Leyden jars. These jars were simply glass containers filled with water charged by a source of friction. The word “Leyden” generally came from the University of Leiden, where the discovery occurred. 5 Benjamin Franklin, experimented with Leyden jars, and made several contributions to science in the process. In 1748, Franklin
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