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Alpha
-Xray International Syndicate -
26.995Khz
LSB
-HISTORY-
The Alpha-Xray International Syndicate was created by a group of
highly mobile and extremely powerful ( 200+ PEP Watts Please!!) stations
that operated consistently on the one frequency since about 1978.
We were gods!!
Or so it seemed at the time ;-) (1977)
In the early days of 27 Mhz in Melbourne Australia, there seemed to
be a few very strong mobile stations that could always take control of
the call channel where ever they seemed to be at the time. Over a
short time span there were about ten individuals that had been bitten
by the CB bug bad!
This accounted for the superiority over other base and mobile
stations by virtue of the fact that these guys had spent some time and
money setting up their mobiles with some serious linears around 400
-500 whiskeys and mobile
antenna's that were hard to get over.
Because of this, the first four procreator's of the
future worldwide Alpha-Xray
International Syndicate had somehow come to the inevitable
"EYEBALL".
After getting together for drinks and the usual waffle that goes on
after a few times, the notion was raised that we form a bit of a group
and use a common identifying call sign. Well there was some idea's for
consideration!!
To make a long story
longer, I would like to say that I was the one
that thought of the callsign as it was the alternate Australian HAM
call to VK that was ever rarely used. Now some could dispute this and
to be truthfull I really cant remember the exact discussions and who
thought of what!
But whatever transpired , it started the foundations of the awsome
AXIS. Whatever!
Anyway the four individuals who we will call (in order of AX
number) AX-01 Bill, the mighty BIG Bull, AX-05 Greg, the Grasshopper,
AX-07 Richard, the Fox, and last, but certainly the least, AX-10 Ian,
the Rootstar.
The goodbuddy callsigns were our original calls but from that
fatefull? day forward we were the Alpha Xray International Syndicate.
Yeah OK, so we were only four guys in Melbourne Australia but we
(I) was thinking big! (I had this business once called Axis Idea's so
it seemed to fit.)
We had all picked our lucky numbers except Bill, who always had to
be first and best!! The Big Bull was not. Well not where you could
notice anyway unless you were a female living in Geelong..
any female that is. Bill was a bit of a Fisherman of the Bay but
somehow the womenfolk of the bayside city had to be cast after as well
with his big pole. Not that him and the Fox didn't catch some great
fish now and again that we all shared on the BBQ!!
Are you still reading this crap?
For some reason now that we all had AX call signs we seemed to be
getting a lot of flak from the other good buddy's (spit) about our
total domination of the call channel at that time - 16LSB.(27.155)
Anyone would think we
didn't have jobs, but I was working for Bell
& Howell as a mobile tech repairing clients Micrographic equipment
and constantly on the road in the B&H Ford EA Panel Van. Ahhh..
What a great vehicle to create the ultimate DX mobile. After tinting
the side and back windows and adding curtains, I was ready to install
the foam mattress and pillows along with all the Radio gear.
Just as well I was
indispensable(?) or I may not have gotten away
with it, after all B&H paid for it and all the petrol that I
burned sitting parked and idling talking on the radio pumping about
500W into a quarter wave stainless steel whip.
Hey it takes a bit of current to run that much power, and I would
soon flatten the battery if I turned the van off. Oh the fun of it
all, raising vehicle parking area boom gates with a good whistle into
the mike and getting in and out for nothing.
I remember the time I nearly crapped my self as a plain clothes copper run up
to my window as I was parked outside a jewelry store in the city DX-ing
and asking if I had seen anyone breaking in that had set off the
silent alarm! Not ME Officer!
If you have had any CB
adventures like this Email me for posting on
here!
Well the upshot of all the abuse
from the GoodBuddy's was we decided to move from the
call channel and create our own personal channel. After some
consideration and swapping around we settled on 26.995 or #3a as it
was known by the more technical CBers of the time. Of course we used
to DX on 27.145 and 27.195 etc. but "The Rat Hole" was
Home!!
This made the previous occupants of 26.995 either vacate or a few
that were more hardy with good equipment enquire if they could join
our AX group.
It sounds funny now, but we ruled this frequency with a vengeance
and only nominated our AX callsigns to the best of the most powerful operators.
The conditions were simple, but the four of us had grown men near tears
by not accepting them.
One I remember anyway! Most others either swore
to get us, or joined to make the syndicate more unbreakable.
Because we only accepted the most powerful stations that were able
to get on the sub frequencies, the new members were technically up with
getting out the best, so naturally were able to DX and spread the
membership world wide to other similar stations.
While all the good buddy's were wanking about on the normal
channels and up the top calling CQDX and crapping on about signal
reports and such, we were just chatting to some of the best worldwide
DX'ers while driving around the city and suburbs about more
interesting things. Probably playing pretend HAM radio operators and
having a good time sums it up. Although we had quite a few Hams with
AX callsigns as well, as they were enjoying the situation as much as
us.
One of our strategies was we allocated our overseas operators by
numbers that indicated the country and just chatted to them like
locals when the bands opened in their direction. As we often had
locals or interstate turkeys try to talk over us if they thought we
were talking DX, it did not alert them to the fact that the band was
open as we didn't say anything about locations etc.
-continued....
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