The cold wind was stiff enough that Don was having some trouble walking across the field behind his cabin. Life on the outskirts of Grande Prairie in Alberta was never easy, but in the late days of fall the cold wind was a harbinger of what would eventually follow. Don was a ham radio operator who was only active on 160 meters, the “Top Band” as old-timers called it. It existed at the low end of the radio dial, some of the lowest frequencies available to radio hams.
It wasn’t a very useful band allocation during the noisy months of spring and summer, but when the nights became longer than daylight, 160 meters transitioned from a pile of atmospheric noise into a most usable band. At least for those with enough physical space for large antennas and miles of ground radials necessary to generate a decent signal on such low frequencies.
And Don was one of those lucky fellows. His cabin sat on 40 acres of prairie along with a few assorted outbuildings. His antennas were big verticals and wires and he could only guess he had buried “miles” of ground radials under it all.
His radio equipment wasn’t the latest and greatest, but he had used it with much success for thirty years and so long as he could keep it in good repair, he saw no reason to replace it. He had a couple home-brewed amplifiers, “big iron” as he called the tube-type behemoths. Given his power and antenna farm, he wielded one of the most potent 160-meter signals in North America.
Don had decided tonight would be the night he made his first call of the new Top Band season which was why he was out making a final round of inspections in the aerial field. He would fire up the equipment at 11pm Mountain Time, and toss out his first call one hour later, allowing the equipment to fully come to temperature. His excitement was palpable and he looked forward to whatever the aether might bring. The last contact in his log was from eight months earlier as the unusually early spring had brought with it noisy thunderstorms causing him to go QRT weeks sooner than usual. The long radio downtime had depressed him as much as the impending new season had raised his spirits.
He downed a bowl of his hearty homemade lentil soup while awaiting midnight. He thought back over all the years he had spent alone in the radio cocoon he had spun for himself. Don had moved here from Cincinnati years ago when he took a job at a large pulp mill from which he eventually retired. He was married once but that didn’t take and he had lived alone since. The glowing tubes in the dark shack, along with the gentle hiss of the band coming alive as the equipment warmed, convinced him that radio was his best companion.
As the clock struck midnight he called “CQ” several times on 1.862 MHz and instantly got a reply from another Don. An old radio friend he had never met in person but who always had a potent signal from Woodlawn, Tennessee. Encouraged by the strong signals, the two of them chatted at length about the previous year, the changes made in their stations, and their hopes for the upcoming new season. By the time he completed the QSO and logging paperwork, it was 1:30am.
He thought it was a good start and was about to pull the plug, but then another fellow he often worked, but had also never met, Felix down in Belize, gave him a quick call. He replied and they chatted briefly as the band was noisy in Central America. But he took the DX as a good sign of more fun to come.
This was going to be a great season on 160, Don was certain of it as he switched off the lights and fell into a deep and satisfying sleep.
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