QST/March 1916/Receiving with a Pancake Tuner

485928Receiving with a Pancake TunerElra E. House

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. House is a firm advocate of the pancake type coils. In this article he tells of, the excellent work which may be done and he gives a list of amateur call letters he copied in one evening. Many of our readers may be surprised to see their call letters here as they do not all know their long distance records.

IT is generally understood that the pancake receiving coils are not an efficient type. The writer has been using one for some time and is very well satisfied. In fact, recently, he built over a whole new receiving set into pancake style; even to the 10,000 meter set for undamped waves.

The following is a list of stations that the writer hears almost every night, using the single audion (no amplifying arrangement). The audion is a poor one having been knocked down several times so that it sometimes does not work for several days at a time: 8ER, 8EZ, 8GV, 8XAU, 8LF, 8YO, 8PL, 8AMN, 8XP, 8SN, 8ZN, 8AAE, 8LE, 8PB, 8MW, 8FW, 8KP, 8PE, 8PC, 8OZ, 8LD, 8RD, 8CT, 8PP, 8TD, 8MV, 8CR, 8AD, 8PW, 8MZ, WP, WPR, 8JA, 8GG, 8CW, 8ABO, 8AHR, 8CB, 8LW, 8NH, 8US, 8NA, 8CL, 8WP, 8YO, 8GU, 8KU, 9AC, 9YN, 9BD, 9NF, 9TM, 9GY, 9IT, 9AA, 9DU, 9AAB, 9GHS, 9NN, 9CY, 9SY, 9SP, 5BJ, HED, HB. The writer has also heard 5BJ with Galena; also 8AEZ, 8NH, and 8WP very easily. Some of these stations are using as low as one-quarter kilowatt sets. It may be of some interest to the operators to know that they have been heard so far with their sets. Most of their messages came in quite loud; easily loud enough to be read.

The writer has also heard NPF, Cape Blanco, Oregon, on a 600 meter wave. His coil takes in 6OO meter waves and he therefore gets all of the Lake boats and stations around the lakes, even as far as Port Arthur. He hears NAA 1oud enough at times to be able to read him ten to fifteen feet from the phones. His aerial consists of four wires, five feet apart. One hundred feet flat top, fifty feet high, inverted L type. The readers may be interested to know that twenty-eight of the above stations were received between 8:45 and 9:20 on the evening of January 29th.


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1966, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 57 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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