SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX020   
   ARLX020 Commemorative Fessenden Christmas Eve 600-Meter Transmissions Set   
      
   ZCZC AX20   
   QST de W1AW   
   Special Bulletin 20  ARLX020   
   > From ARRL Headquarters   
   Newington CT  December 22, 2016   
   To all radio amateurs   
      
   SB SPCL ARL ARLX020   
   ARLX020 Commemorative Fessenden Christmas Eve 600-Meter Transmissions Set   
      
   Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, of Forest, Virginia, will once again put his 600-meter   
   experimental station on the air for a Christmas Eve commemorative   
   transmission. The transmissions from WI2XLQ on 486 kHz will mark the 110th   
   anniversary of Reginald Fessenden's first audio broadcast on the airwaves.   
      
   Historic accounts say Fessenden played the violin - or a recording of violin   
   music - and read a brief Bible verse. It's been reported that other radio   
   experimenters and shipboard operators who heard Fessenden's broadcast were   
   astounded.   
      
   Justin will use a MOPA-design transmitter built largely with vintage parts to   
   replicate early vacuum-tube equipment; not a Fessenden-period transmitter, it   
   uses a UV-202 tube for the power amplifier. He will conduct a run-up to the   
   event starting at around mid-day Eastern Time on Friday, December 23. The   
   "official" Christmas event will begin on Christmas Eve, Saturday, December 24,   
   at 0001 UTC (the evening of December 23 in US time zones) and will continue   
   for at least 24 hours. Justin plans to repeat the commemorative transmissions   
   on New Year's Eve and on New Year's Day.   
      
   For his transmitter in 1906, Fessenden used an AC alternator modulated by   
   placing carbon microphones in series with the antenna feed line. Justin's   
   homebuilt station is slightly more modern, based   
   on a 1921 vacuum tube master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) design. The   
   transmitter also uses Heising AM modulation, developed by Raymond Heising   
   during World War I.   
      
   Justin's WI2XLQ on-air operations coincide with dates in early radio history   
   as a way to recognize and honor some of the earliest wireless pioneers and   
   their achievements. Send listener reports directly to Brian Justin, WA1ZMS,   
   via email at, wa1zms@arrl.net .   
      
   NNNN   
   /EX   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
   Always Mount a Scratch Monkey   
   Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it   
   wrong...   
   ... People with bad coughs never go to doctors - they go to the movies.   
   ---   
    * Origin:  (1:3634/12.73)