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Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:36:09 +0000
From: Steve Dove <dsp@hifidelity.com>
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Subject: Re: LF: The bells, the bells!
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Hi Andy, et al,

Yeah, "The Bells" were within a few kHz of 1900kHz, although 
occasionally you could find one higher or lower.  There were 
some down around 1750-ish, too.  They were Decca variants, 
harbour- or estuary-wide in scope, called 'HiFix', and 
latterly 'Hyperfix'.  Same idea, a master pulse, then 
repeated (3? 4?) slave pulses slightly off frequency.  A 
cluster of them together was indeed melodious.  When I first 
had a decent topband setup here, 20 years ago, I could hear 
a chain around 1900 as well, probably Baltimore harbour or 
Philadelphia dockyards.

I too first tasted hambone flesh on topband in the sixties; 
  the unbelievably lethal contraptions hammer-and-nailed 
together to make (what we could only hope was) 10W would 
give me heart attack if either of my kids did the same 
today.  (Like messing with fireworks  -  it's amazing any of 
us are still alive and fully limbed, really.)  Dad's prized 
Leak hifi amp 'borrowed' as a modulator.  Wires all over  - 
  it was wonderful.  And, yes Alan, working one's first OK 
on topband was a rite of passage; a rosy glow of 
super-being-dom for days afterwards!

In deepest, darkest Henley-on-Thames, Loran daytime 
clobbered say 1930-1970-ish kHz; there were two chains 
audible simultaneously, hence the cyclical 'phasing' sound 
between them.  Night-time, another bunch appeared centred on 
1850.  Fancifully we presumed it was an American/Canadian 
chain, but the probable reality was that it was from the top 
end of Scotland or such. Never had the presence of mind to 
record Loran (or The Bells), which considering the radio 
'junk' and the recording 'junk' cohabited the same space and 
were to an unpracticed eye one-and-the-same 'junk', was a 
sad oversight.

It would be intriguing to find out where those Loran 'A' 
sites were.  And here we are waiting fingers crossed for 
Loran 'C' to go away.  Trouble is, what'll we do for easy 
calibration, then?  And will I have the presence of mind to 
record IT before it goes . . .

         Cheers,

                 Steve     G3YDV in a former life


Andy Talbot wrote:

> 
> When I used to listen 30 years ago on AM in a wide(ish) bandwidth at =
> ~1900kHz, it sounded like a bell jangling 


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