AmateurRadio.com

courtesy: WØVLZ

This coming week will provide two great opportunities to fire-up your older radios and enjoy some pleasant CW exchanges with other like-minded vintage radio users!

The Antique Wireless Association's (AWA) annual roll-out of the Linc Cundall (W2LC) Memorial CW Contest takes place this coming Wednesday and Saturday. Activity starts at 2300Z on both days and continues for 24 hours. Linc Cundall was one of the the three founders of the AWA, back in 1952, along with Bruce Kelley (W2ICE) and George Batterson (W2GB).

Over the decades, the AWA has been one of the chief proponents for the preservation of radio history, in all of its forms ... including the restoration and active use of vintage radio equipment. The AWA celebrates vintage amateur radio with several 'on-air' events each year including the premier event, the '1929 Bruce Kelley Contest'.

The annual 'Linc' CW party encourages all amateurs, including non-AWA members, to utilize their pre-1950 radios ... those designed and built before 1950 as well as homebrew reproductions of popular pre-'50's designs. Participants are encouraged to call 'CQ AWA AWA' on 160, 80 or 40m CW... suggested 'window frequencies' are outlined in the rules page which can be found here. Active discussion and promotion regarding the upcoming event may be found on Yahoo's AWAGroup reflector.

If you have an older radio (receiver or transmitter) that qualifies ... this includes any of your WWII surplus! ... hopefully you can spark-up for the event.

No older gear? Don't let that stop you from getting in on the fun, as modern rigs can be used as well, with the object of working as many AWA vintage stations as possible ... no excuses!

The above photo illustrates some of the beautiful homebrew work being done by Neil, WØVLZ, who was the chief inspiration for my own involvement in '29 activity. It will be hard to visit his amazing pages without getting hooked, so you have been warned!

My present 'vintage on-air' shelf beside the main operating table has been occupied now for several years by my Tri-Tet-Ten but with the likely demise of further 10m work, it's time to exchange it with something that I can use more often.

I hope to set up my homebrew 'Longfeller', shown below, inspired by the original design published in July, 1946 QST. My Longfeller operates on all bands from 160-10m, and should be ideal for the upcoming activity nights.


Please do consider getting on the air for this annual event, no matter what radios that you have ... it's especially nice to hear the sounds of these old radios that are fast disappearing. Events like this keep these great sounds alive.

See you in the 'Linc'!