OMG What am I going to do with this??

[Jeffhs]

I never operated 160m when I had my OTA ham station in suburban Cleveland. The vertical and dipole antennas I used were not tunable to 160. Never used any kind of high power transmitter, either; the highest power I ever used was 100 watts, from my Icom IC-725. 160m does not apply to my current setup (Echolink), since it is not OTA ham radio but purely streaming audio over the Internet, with the capability to link to other stations and even control other stations remotely. I also operated 2 meters through local FM repeaters.

However, I did play with a 0.1-watt (100mW) AM transmitter (Lafayette Radio KT-195, three tubes, 2 50BM8s and a 36AM3 rectifier tube) in the early 1970s, putting a very small (!) AM radio station on the air for about a year and a half from my home town. I couldn't use any kind of outdoor antenna with it, so was restricted to the wire antenna which had been supplied with the kit; any kind of longer antenna would have caused the transmitter to put out some level of power over 100 mW. The transmitter put out a strong enough signal (!) with its supplied antenna, however, to be heard only about five hundred feet either side of my home; the best reception report I ever had with this super-peanut whistle was in the spring of 1971, when someone reported hearing the signal at the corner of my street, near the mailbox. Conditions must have been extremely good that day as I never received another reception report like that again, from then until the station signed off for the last time.

I had to give up the station when I moved in 1972 (long story), but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. My amateur radio station, WN8NHV, however, replaced it (I had received my Novice ticket shortly before I moved; got the station on the air 97 days later).....and the rest is history.

BTW, I would think using a 1-kW broadcast transmitter on 160 meters would be illegal, to say nothing of the fact that hardly anyone uses AM on any amateur band (except perhaps six meters) anymore. These transmitters were not intended to be used on the amateur bands; moreover, the modifications required to allow the transmitter to operate on 160 meters (or any other amateur band) would probably, even likely, void the transmitter's FCC approval, which would be valid only as long as the transmitter was operated within the AM broadcast band. I remember seeing a cartoon in one of the electronics magazines (Electronics Illustrated, long since defunct, comes to mind) in which an amateur was in a jail cell, talking to his cell mate. The amateur had been cited by the FCC for calling CQ on the AM broadcast band, over a 50-kW broadcast transmitter. I'll never know, but my best guess is the man lost his amateur license as well as having had to serve the prison sentence. There was also the story of a woman who was an announcer, on the night shift, at a traffic-information station on 530 kHz. The station was legal, but the woman got bored after several nights of announcing only traffic reports; she eventually started singing and playing records over the station, and was eventually fired for illegally playing music over a TIS radio station. The company or concern to which the station was licensed probably was cited as well.

[Charlie]

Well, it hasn't moved anywhere. It still sits in the same place it did when I got it home a couple of years ago. It really needs to find a new home.

[dtvmcdonald]

I was not aware that transmitters needed FCC approval to be used on ham bands. Sold specifically for ham band use, commerically, yes.

They just need to meet the requisite power and bandwidth rules.

As far as AM goes, I hear AM all the time on 80 and 40 meters,
and even on 160 meters at times.

A broadcast band transmitter of say 1 or 2 kW or less, if not specifically designed for only the lower parts of the band, should be easy to get to work around 1.9 MHz. It would be crystal controlled, of course, but any competant builder could build a tube or transistor buffer amp to take output from a synthesizer or VFO and use it to feed the nominal crystal oscillator.

If the transmitter did not have a built-in audio limiter with essential bandwidth filter, a simple external filter would satisfy the bandwidth requirment. If it did have that, the internal audio filter would need serious modification.

Somebody should take this transmitter and do it!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

I was not aware that transmitters needed FCC approval to be used on ham bands. Sold specifically for ham band use, commerically, yes.

They just need to meet the requisite power and bandwidth rules.

As far as AM goes, I hear AM all the time on 80 and 40 meters,
and even on 160 meters at times.

A broadcast band transmitter of say 1 or 2 kW or less, if not specifically designed for only the lower parts of the band, should be easy to get to work around 1.9 MHz. It would be crystal controlled, of course, but any competant builder could build a tube or transistor buffer amp to take output from a synthesizer or VFO and use it to feed the nominal crystal oscillator.

If the transmitter did not have a built-in audio limiter with essential bandwidth filter, a simple external filter would satisfy the bandwidth requirment. If it did have that, the internal audio filter would need serious modification.

Somebody should take this transmitter and do it!

Homebrewing has always been a major part of the ham radio hobby. Anyone can make/modify and use their own TX and RX gear without the gear needing government certification as long the gear complies with relevant power limits for the frequency it is used on as well as other standards and the operator is ham with the proper license.

Unless someone wants to use it as an AM broadcast band rig in the future there's nothing wrong converting it to a ham band.