My amateur radio career began in September 1969 when I obtained my general class license, callsign WA0ZRT. I was 15. Shortly after receiving my license I encountered the County Hunters Net on 75 meters and found that my county (Fremont) in Iowa was very rare. I worked all 50 states before I closed my station the next morning at 5 AM. This was in an era when I had to ask permission to make a long distance phone call 40 miles away.
During my highschool days I used a Galaxy GT-550 ( 550 W PEP, 360 W CW ) and a TA-33 mounted on the second story of my family's garage. Propagation to the east, west and south was extraordinary so I had many enjoyable QSOs on 10m and 15m.
For a time after college I was very active. Being the poor college graduate that many of us are in our early years, I built my own free-standing, 63 foot tower and this became home for my TA-33. At the base the tower was 4 feet on-a-side, tapering to 18 inches at the top for the last ten feet. Now, some thirty years later, it is still standing in my small hometown in Iowa.
A return to college and accompanying major career shift to electrical engineering kept me away from the hobby considerably until I returned in February 2006 to try out the Virginia QSO party. I had such a good time that I soon acquired an SB200 amplifier that received the customary modifications. With some power to accompany my disadvantaged antenna situation ( due to covenants and restrictions {C&Rs} ), I became further involved
I moved to a new country QTH in Oct 2010 where I am able to install antennas. In early September 2011 I finished the majority of the new antenna installation. The 72 foot crankup tower has a complement of a Force12 C-31XR for 10-20 m and a Cushcraft XM-240 for 40 m. When fully extended the C31XR is at 73 feet and the XM-240 at 81 feet. August 2012 I installed a DX Engineering DXE-8040VA-1 vertical ( ~ 54 ft high for 80m). There are 90 radials forming the ground plane for the vertical. I will likely build a ~ 70 foot base-loaded, tunable vertical for 160 m sometime in the future.
From time-to-time you may hear me operating K4VV remotely while away on business travel. K4VV has an outstanding complement of four loaded 120 ft towers, Acom automatic-tune linear amplifiers, and the ability to do almost everything remotely from a laptop. W0YR is the guru who assembled all this capability.
I look forward to our next QSO, whether at a leisurely, rag-chew pace, or in a contest. I operate almost exclusively CW.
On the left, below, is my operating position with my Ten-Tec Orion II transceiver and a Centurion amplifier, as well as an Alpha 8410. To the rightis a picture of the QTH with the yagis approximately 100 ft beyond the house. The antennas are rotated by a M2 Orion 2800P rotator.
