W2IOP had a perfect fist and a snappy operating style that was years ahead
of everyone else in the late 40s and 50s. As a kid of 14 or 15 I would
take the train to NYC to do the surplus stores and always stopped in at
Harrison Radio where all the latest equipment was set up and operating. We
would try out the bugs and electronic keyers and the standard test message
to see how well one could send was "CQ SS de W2IOP". Vic, W4KFC used a bug
and had a fist with a lot of character that was easily picked out in an SS
contest. Of course he was always 10 or 20 dB louder than anyone else on 80
or 40 as well. On Sunday evening when everyone else was long out of
stations to work, Vic would call CQ SS and the answers just kept coming in
ones and twos hour after hour. Everyone wanted to work him.
I may be dreaming, but before the rules outlawed it, I think at least one
station I know of used more than one radio. Two or more transmitters were
keyed simultaneously and the receivers were mixed so that responses for
both could be heard at the same time. There were a number of people that
had single band amps for each band to cut down the bandswitching time.
With mil surplus tubes around for $0.50 that could put out a kw, the
limiting factor was time to build all the stuff. Most people only ran 100
watts or so in the SS and the amps were saved for the DX contest.
My own personal secret weapon was an electro mechanical rate meter which
incremented for each qso and read out my rate on a micro ampmeter. Full
scale was 50/hr. It helped get me into the top ten a few times.
George
w2vjn@rosenet.net
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