SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX020
ARLX020 Commemorative Fessenden Christmas Eve 600-Meter Transmissions Set

ZCZC AX20
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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

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