My first AM "TX" was in the early 60's, I had a old valve AM receiver,
and sometimes I could hear the Local Oscillator from Next Doors radio
swish across weak stations I was listening to, So I thought... I wonder how far MY Local Osc. would go?....
Old valve receivers seemed to run quite a high level of injection,
and so I walked down the street with my transistor radio, went for quite a way...
But how? could I get some Mod on it?...
Easy, I put a Carbon Mic. in series with the aerial lead, with it sitting in front of a record player...
Now I could put an LP on, and go down the street, to test the range...
Later in life, parents moved to Northampton, I then did tests with a VFO driving a 6V6, with high level mod,
then did lots of tests with Frame Aerials, Even TXing into Frame Aerials, found you needed a wide spaced tuning gang,
a normal receiver type, would flash over on mod peaks
Buster Pearson even printed an article by me, on how to build a frame aerial, in Monitor Magazine,
Later on, I visited him and Penelope in Benfleet
I worked in a Radio Shop in Northampton, and helped a Sunday pirate build a Transistor TX,
He got hold of the US WABC Jingles, and edited the W off, calling himself Radio ABC...
I was talking to another radio ham down in Hertfordshire, and he said, "I can hear a pirate called Radio ABC"...
Oh S**t...I could not say "thanks for the reception report"!
Later in Life, I met up with Howard Rose, before he started KCBC, he used to ring me, about starting a Pirate station in Kettering,
and Later on when KCBC started, I ended up working there, We were supposed to run 50W, but it accidently got turned up to 200W,
going down the M1, used to fade out, about the Luton Area... tribute site... https://1584kcbc.co.uk/?page_id=5
Nowadays, I just look after, several Local FM Community stations, I Used to do PMR work (taxis, Farmers radios etc)
Rod Watts
