On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 13:03:12 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/24/2016 11:22 AM, wrote:

Yup, when we were doing "AM DXing" there were 3 or 4 far away stations
we could get at night if the atmospherics were right. I have picked
up WLS on I-95 in the Carolinas while I was on my way to Florida. It
is weird because it will pop up as clear as a bell and a while later
it just fades away. The old Childrens Band worked that way too.
Occasionally you would hear someone from 1000 miles away but they just
came and went. Whether you could actually respond was another thing.
(although it was technically illegal to do so)


During the CB craze of the 80's I specifically bought a certain model
base station sold through Radio Shack because it could be easily
modified. When I finished the "mods", a push of a button could change
the frequencies to what was called the "upper" set. No local chatter
there. Of course you could only talk to someone who also had a modified
radio.

The other major modification was to increase the power output that could
be controlled with an added external potentiometer. Straight AM went
from the regulation 4 watts up to a max of 16 watts. Sideband could be
adjusted from the regulation 12 watts PEP to about 30 watts.

I used to be able to talk to a guy in Italy on Sunday mornings from our
house on the shoreline of MA. At night I could talk to people as far
away as CA. Skip, of course.

I thought about buying a foot warmer for the one in my truck but I was
never sure why I would want it. I really only used it for finding
smokey and I didn't care about it, if he was 100 miles away.

I did get to know a lot of the truckers running the I-95 corridor at
night and I actually rescued a couple of them when they broke down on
270 or 495. Having that relationship was handy when I was making a
midnight run to Florida ;-)
My record was just a tad over 14 hours, Clinton to St Pete. (910
miles). The hammer was definitely down that night in my E-150.