Low band skip from Prudhoe Bay AK 1991

[safetypro79]

In my previous life after retirement from BP Exploration for 35 years and used to work in Prudhoe Bay as a safety engineer I remember one time sitting in his truck with a friend of mine Don who was the safety professional who worked for HC Price company and we were talking work when, we heard these guys with a distinctive Texas accent talking about a minor job accident, we did not recognize the location, it didn’t seem like they were close, being in Prudhoe Bay Alaskan in the Arctic so he picked up the microphone and said: “hey where are you guys located” they said we were someplace in Texas on a job we said we were just calling you from Prudhoe Alaska of course they came back and said: “bull-xxxx” in their typical Texas draw after convincing them we were in fact calling from the Arctic ( one of the guys had a friend who worked for HC Price at Prudhoe) anyway it was interesting because we were just on a low band mobile and over 2500 miles skip.

 

[W8UU]

anyway it was interesting because we were just on a low band mobile and over 2500 miles skip.

When low band was heavily used this was a frequent occurrence once skip started rolling. Our local fire department in southeastern Ohio used 33.84 MHz at the time. When band conditions were right, Enfield Connecticut boomed in like a local.

 

[WB5UOM]

Ah Yes Low Band- thats a great story!
back in the 80's we had many Customers with 250watt low band base stations...you just never knew who was going to respond when you picked up the local mic and said "Radio Service to any unit for a radio check"

 

[VK3RX]

1989-1991 was the period of a sunspot peak, and lowband comms from the U.S. romped in at times here in SE Australia.

Often on a single frequency comms from one area would fade in then out, replaced by another.

A very short example of police dispatch here (without any transmissions with citizens ID) on a scanner & discone.

 

[cbehr91]

I'm sure this has been shared on this site before, but here is a video of LAFD transmissions being received in the Cincinnati area during the same timeframe.

 

[K4IHS]

Back in the 1970's I was a firefighter in Sylvania, Ohio near Toledo. Our operating frequency was on low band 33.740 KQB531. We didn't use CTCSS tones back then. Boston, MA. fire department was also on 33.740. There were times when the Boston skip signals were so strong that we couldn't even hear our own dispatcher or other units. It sure was nice when we moved to UHF 460.575 WXY457. The old low band system was maintained for many years as a backup system. We still gathered in the station comm center and listened to Boston Fire when they had bad fires.

 

[W1KNE]

Didn't the Boston fire department assist a Ohio community during an ESkip opening after a tornado hit? I seem to recall a story of that happening.

My father's oil company was (still is, he's retired) on 49.54, and almost every spring, when he was hearing skip, he'd turn off the PL and talk to another oil company in the upper Midwest. (Wisconsin or Minnesota).

 

[K4IHS]

Didn't the Boston fire department assist a Ohio community during an ESkip opening after a tornado hit? I seem to recall a story of that happening.

My father's oil company was (still is, he's retired) on 49.54, and almost every spring, when he was hearing skip, he'd turn off the PL and talk to another oil company in the upper Midwest. (Wisconsin or Minnesota).

I vaguely remember this. I think it was during a rash of Palm Sunday tornadoes about 1965’ish.

 

[ecps92]

I recall one many years later 80's? as well, being born in 64' - I doubt I was into the Hobby yet maybe a few more years

I vaguely remember this. I think it was during a rash of Palm Sunday tornadoes about 1965’ish.

 

[cbehr91]

There was a tornado outbreak in the Midwest on Palm Sunday 1965.

1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[kk9h]

Back in the early 1970s I was attending the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. I had a job filling in as a dispatcher for the town police department. Their radios were all in the 39 MHz range and they were on a shared channel with other rural TN towns. As a student I always ended up with the midnight to 8am shift but it was a great time to get homework done. One night a station started coming through with car numbers and street names that were entirely new. As was mentioned previously, PL was not used much on these frequencies back then and that was the case here too. When the mystery station finally gave his ID, it was about 2am and being a ham, I figured “why not” so I gave him a call. He came right back to me and I learned that he was with the San Francisco PD, and that he was also a ham. We didn’t tie up the channel for very long but it certainly was a memorable contact that was made even more so by using police radios.