The 2024 CQ DX Marathon results have been posted, and the MLDXCC placed 4th overall in the small club category!
Also two MLDXCC members placed first for call area 6 in their respective categories: Mike K7QDX in the Limited category, and Richard NC6RJ in the Formula 100W category.
Let’s go get ’em in 2025!
In the July, 1927 issue of QST magazine, an advertisement was published featuring the “6EX Rectifier” by a company named the National Radio Tube Company of San Francisco, CA. The call 6EX was held by a Garrett Lewis. Rectifiers like the 280 and the 281 had become available by 1927 for receivers and low power transmitters, but no rectifiers that would handle the voltage and current required to power the larger transmitting tubes hams were wishing to use. Arc rectifiers could be used but, they weren’t practical for most hams. It was unusual to see a tube named alter a ham. Hams would be assigned prefixes sometime in 1928.
The 6EX was later designated the R-3 and started life as a high vacuum type, but the final product was mercury vapor with an indirectly heated cathode. The maximum plate voltage was 7500 peak inverse volts at 250 ma. The filament ran on 10 volts at 1.7 amps. The tube had a standard UX base and a threaded stud out the top for the plate connection.
I don’t know how well the tubes were selling, but Lewis had a ham friend in Southern California who wanted to replace the ARC rectifier he had sold him and build a new power supply. The friend was Don Wallace, 6AM, and he wanted to go big. Lewis had also sold Wallace a re-built F328A which was a water cooled, 5 KW triode.
Don didn’t like QRP. Don bought six 3 KVA pole pigs that were 220 volts in and 6000 volts out from the power company and mounted them in a rack with six of the new R-3 rectifiers. The new power supply would be wired for six phase operation. The schematic and rack photo are copied from QST magazine of February, 1928, where Don and Robert Kruse of the QST staff, wrote a 9-page description of the final power supply. Six phase rectification results in an output ripple of six times the input ripple frequency. In 1928, 360 Hz was considered a good CW note and adding a filter condenser would be very expensive. The R-3 may have never been a commonly used tube as in a few years, the RCA 866 went into production and the R-3 became only a collectable. Before WWII, Lewis moved to Silicon Valley where Lewis Electronics was formed and participated in tube production for the war effort. In 1949 Lewis and Kaufman was organized and operated into 1956. In about 1962, I bought two 3 KVA pole pigs from PG&E for $3 per KVA.
February/March 2025
Volume 30 Number 3
Round Table Pizza, Jackson
Meeting was called to order at 12:19 p.m. by Treasurer Sue Allred, K6SZQ. There were 12 attending in person, with 2 more attending via zoom. Of these there was one guest. Sue welcomed everyone. Each member and guest introduced themselves.
Old Business:
New Business: None.
Member Achievements:
Announcements/Discussion:
Next Meeting: Proposed date to be May 10, the location is Habanero Hots in Lodi.
Adjournment: Rick Samoian, W6SR, moved to adjourn the business meeting and move to the presentation. Jeff Stai, WK6I seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Meeting was adjourned at 12:50 p.m.
Presentation: John Stanley, K4ERO, gave a fascinating presentation on Antipodal Focusing and its effect on ionospheric propagation near the opposite side of the earth from the transmitter. You can also get further information from his article in the March, 2025 QST.
Respectfully Submitted,
G. “Skip” Chraft, N6NFB
Sue K6SZQ reported that, given the low level of activity, she’s going to switch to quarterly reporting. Look for the first quarter report in the next issue of The Nugget.
Hi MLDXCC’ers,
Well, here I am as President of this club again. I swore it would never happen but Steve, NC6R, termed out. In an attempt to keep the club healthy, I made the suggestion that I’d take over as President and Steve will be VP… with one condition… Steve will keep running the meetings and I’ll continue to arrange the meetings and speakers. So, nothing has really changed other than a “loophole” in the Bylaws that allows us to continue as we have over the past three years.
I want to thank John Stanley, K4ERO, for a terrific presentation at last month’s meeting on the subject of Antipodal Focusing, meaning propagation from your QTH to the opposite side of the earth. We did record the meeting and, hopefully, Jeff will find a way to post the link on the all-new MLDXCC website.
I can’t thank Norm, N6JV, enough for what he has done for our website and newsletter. Without Norm’s constant “nagging” for content, we would not have had a newsletter and website with the great content we have had over the years. Alas, Norm has finally found someone to take over the website and Nugget. We all thank Jeff, WK6I, for taking on the challenge of filling Norm’s big shoes. Keep doing those great tube articles, Norm!
We have some really good speakers lined up for the upcoming months. Our May speaker will be Chuck, NA6XX, who will give a presentation on 6-meter DX’ing and propagation. Chuck, who lives in San Jose, will be driving to Habanero Hots, in Lodi, to give us his presentation in person. I also plan to stream this meeting. The date is May 10th.
A few others have agreed to do upcoming presentations. Stu, K6TU, will give a talk on his K6TU.net HF propagation site Craig, K9CT, will give us a presentation on his super contest station. Gary, NA6O, has also offered to give another one of his very entertaining talks. Other presentation for future months are in the works.
Both Steve and I have resisted streaming our meetings in the past for various reasons. We will be streaming more of our upcoming meetings. I do hope we can get more of our members from outside the core area to attend. Maybe even Will, from down south who often participates in our reflector conversation, will show us what he looks like!
In our February meeting, I did a contesting and DX’ing quiz, which seemed to get rave reviews, so we may do another one of those in the upcoming months. The February quiz, and the answers, are in this month’s nugget.
Last, and certainly not least, several of our members participated in the CQ WPX SSB contest last weekend at WC6H’s contest station. Besides Rich, the operators included Jeff (WK6I), Steve (NC6R), Gary (VA7RR), Tim (NU6S), and Barry (K6ST). The team did a whopping 14,097,405 claimed score to support NCCC’s effort.
For those headed to Visalia, travel safe and have a great time! – Bob W1RH
Gary NA6O reminds us how to properly Rotate Your Yagi (no, not that way!)
The Questions and the Answers to the quiz that Bob W1RH presented at the February 2025 meeting.
The Deleted Country of the Month, courtesy of the SCDXC.
2025 RTTY Roundup Final Results
Tony K6BV has the following items for sale, please contact him at dxer@k6bv.net.
As of 31 March 2025. You can see complete MLDXCC standings on ClubLog here.
Overall
| 1 | NK7I | 211 |
| 2 | W1SRD | 200 |
| 3 | W6DE | 181 |
| 4 | K6YK | 164 |
| 5 | K6OK | 154 |
CW
| 1 | K6YK | 136 |
| 2 | NO5Z | 113 |
| 3 | N6WM | 103 |
| 4 | NA6O | 102 |
| 5 | W1SRD | 95 |
Phone
| 1 | W1SRD | 112 |
| 2 | N6WM | 111 |
| 3 | NO5Z | 106 |
| 4 | K6YK | 101 |
| 5 | K6TQ | 81 |
Data
| 1 | NK7I | 200 |
| 2 | W1SRD | 168 |
| 3 | W6DE | 161 |
| 4 | K7QDX | 149 |
| 5 | K6OK | 128 |
Check out the Resources menu up there at the top of every web page for useful DX and contest info.
Prepared for the MLDXCC by Editor and Webmaster Jeff WK6I. Please do send me any corrections, omissions, or material for future issues of The Nugget. It is much appreciated!
At the February MLDXCC meeting Bob W1RH conducted a sort of trivia contest of various DXing and contesting questions. Here are the questions with the possible answers to choose from.
ARRL SWEEPSTAKES
CQWW
IARU WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
NAQP
Vermont
Maine
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Chiefs
Bills
Trump
Eagles
Aruba
Bonaire
Curacao
Carriacou
PVRC, SCCC, PL259
PVRC, MLDXCC, PL259
YCCC, NCCC, Arizona Outlaws
K6TA
K6AO
K6KO
W6FI
73
RRR
RR73
All of the above
SSB
CW
RTTY
FT8
All of the above
USA
UN HQ
ITU HQ
Austria
331
339
340
344
14
15
2
5
South Sandwich Islands
South Orkney Islands
Falkland Islands
South Georgia Islands
8
5
7
13
3Y0J
3Y0I
3Y0K
3Y0Z
To the rear
To the front
To the side
Above the antenna
Multi-band vertical
RTTY Modem
Single-band vertical
Mobile antenna
ON6WW
W6JB
9V1YC
5X1Z
Macquarie Island
Mellish Reef
Kermadec Island
Heard Island
Yes
No
Lloyd Colvin, W6KG
Don Wallace, W6AM
Hugh Cassidy WA6AUD
Bip Bachmann W6BIP
At the February MLDXCC meeting Bob W1RH conducted a sort of trivia contest of various DXing and contesting questions. Here are the questions with the correct answers.
ARRL SWEEPSTAKES
NAQP
SELF SPOTTING MEANS THAT YOU SPOT YOURSELF INSTEAD OF RELYING ON OTHERS
Maine – Krazzy is from Bulgaria (LZ prefix).
TRUMP
Aruba – Also P49L. Built by Carl, AI6V, as P49V. P49Y is Andy, AE6Y. P49L is John, W6LD
PVRC, MLDXCC, PL259 – (we hope)
K6AO – Was John Fogg, Portola Valley, CA
ALL OF THE ABOVE
ALL OF THE ABOVE – TWO BAND SYNCHRONIZED INTERLEAVED QSO’S.
USA (WORLD BANK)
340
5 – ST PIERRE AND MIQUELON
SOUTH ORKNEY ISLANDS
5
3Y0Z – THE DXPEDITION FAILED BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT SAFELY LAND. THE BOAT GOT TO APPROXIMATELY ONE MILE FROM THE ISLAND
TO THE SIDE – A SHARP BROADSIDE NULL
ABOVE THE ANTENNA
MULTI-BAND VERTICAL (40/80/160) – WERE OFTEN USED ON DXPEDITIONS
9V1YC – HE HAS FILMED MANY MAJOR DXPEDITIONS. HE OWNS A PRODUCTION COMPANY IN SINGAPORE
HEARD ISLAND – 1997
NO (Deleted March 19th, 2016 – was administered by US NAVY. Changed to US Fish and Wildlife, which also administers nearby Palmyra. Now counts as Palmyra/Jarvis.
HUGH CASSIDY, WA6AUD (first used in the West Coast DX Bulletin)
I’ve seen the final results for the 2025 RTTY Roundup and here are the results for the MLDXCC. The club competed in the Medium Club category and came in 9th place.
Club member scores for Single Op, Low Power:
Club member scores for Single Op, High Power:
Club member scores for Single Op, High Power, Unlimited:
Thanks everyone for your participation!
An occasional feature, courtesy of the Southern California DX Club.
Everyone knows how to rotate their Yagi antenna: Just turn the knob and away it goes. But this article isn’t about that rotation, it’s about rotating it a different way, for maintenance. When your beam has a problem wayy out where you can’t reach it, the usual expectation is that the whole thing is going to have to come down off the tower. Many of us have seen balun failures or lost the tip off of an element or had an element twist on the boom, and there’s no obvious or easy way to reach it. It’s bad enough that we have to hire a climber, and even worse when the work involves tramming the whole shebang down to the ground and back up. Thankfully, professional tower busters have tricks that save us much time and effort. The first time you see it, the light goes on and it’s obvious… If only you had thought of if first!
The simplest trick is to rotate the Yagi by loosening the boom in the boom-to-mast clamp, allowing the boom itself to rotate. This lets the elements swing down alongside the tower. Now it’s possible to climb up or down and reach at least the elements that are close to the tower. Our local climber Mark, N9LS, did a service call at my station W6SRR where some plastic clips out on the elements had slipped out of position. He was able to reach them and fix the issue easily.
The more elaborate and flexible trick is to dismount the Yagi entirely while temporarily supporting it at its balance point with some combination of slings, ropes, and a come-along. At N6RO, we had a balun failure on a long 20m Yagi and Hector, AD6D, used this method. Once the antenna is free-floating, it’s easy to position it at any angle along the tower, allowing access to anything that needs attention.
So be sure to consult the pros when you have a problem up the tower. They may even show you a different way to rotate.
Westinghouse was one of the first American companies to commercially produce vacuum tubes. RCA held the triode patent so Westinghouse and General Electric made tubes for distribution by RCA. These companies also developed experimental tubes for their own use and to develop new products and perfect construction techniques. The featured transmitting triode was found at a swap meet. I don’t think I paid much as nobody knew what it was other than an early, primitive triode that was probably made about 1920. Eventually I identified it as a Westinghouse WD-24, but I have no reference source to prove it. All tube collectors have a library of reference material and I think someone knew what it was and supplied the operating voltages and currents. The plate could be run as high as 2000 volts at 250 ma. The filament was 10 volts at 15 amps. The tube stands 12 inches tall. Westinghouse tubes had several prefix codes and often WD was used to indicate a developmental tube.
This tube was made by spot welding rods to support the plate and grid. The ends were connected to internal metal clamps. In operation, the tube was mounted with straps. This system is similar to what de Forest tubes of this period used. The feature that doesn’t make any sense is the square box shaped plate. Making the spacing between the grid and plate uniform, minimizes the creation of hot spots The variable grid to plate spacing may result in an odd-looking set of performance curves. This design didn’t catch on but it is an interesting example of early experimentation.
