I entered the ARRL Phone SS in 1958 at the age of 14. In those days you had
to choose between phone or CW.
The first weekend (there were two) I ended up with 19 hours and about 120
QSOs behind my rival Shelton W5DQK. Of course Ron, K6EVR was way ahead
of everybody. I remember working him 2 nours into the contest and wondering
how he got to 141 Q's with me at 71. Toward the end of the weekend W5IWL
in Oklahoma worked me and said he though I would beat W5DQK. He even sent
me a QSL telling me that.
Seems most everyone tried to get in 22 to 25 hours the first weekend to max
the number of Q's. So I had several hours to play with plus I quickly was
learning
what hours were good QSO hours and what were hours to sleep ot take a break.
I put in 21 hours the second weekend and would up almost 90 Q's in front of
W5DQK. Ron won by a wide margin and Lee W6PQW (now W6BH) came in second
using just 10 meters. I came in third and Shelton Fourth.
The gear was light generations behind. I had a Hammarlund receiver and a
homebrew transmitter
with a small driver and a 4-125 amplifier that we set to 150 watts input and
had that verified by two club members (that went in with my log). In those
days on either CW or AM Phone the winners ran low power to get the
multiplier. I remember the W0 who ran a Viking Desk KW whose score was
changed after being in print as the winner because it was obvious he ran a
KW (input).
I switched the rig by throwing a toggle switch. After throwing this for 821
QSOs plus at least another 800 times for repeats (the exchange was a message
preamble in those days) and missed calls I modified the transmitter for push
to talk the next year. When I went SSB in December 1959 I went VOX and have
used VOX ever since.
My dad tried the rig on CW and after struggling to work W4KFC late Sunday he
decided to replace the switch with a vacuum relay for near QSK. The
receiver thumped so its near QSK.
I found that I could run especially on 15 and 20 but the master was K6EVR
who sat on 21.3 for 30 out of 40 hours.
Sure wish I had SO2R and better antennas HI.
73 Dave K4JRB
PS The contests (CW and Phone) ran 73 hours and you picked the best 40.
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