I passed my Novice exam in April 1990 in Wichita, KS after taking a course with the Boeing Employees Amateur Radio Society (BEARS) and I received the call KA1VVA, since I moved back to CT in May. I eventually passed my Advanced exam in June 1991 in Milford, CT and changed my call to KD1DC. After moving to NC in 1995, I changed my call to KU4GT. Once the vanity gate for the Advance class opened, I changed my call again to my current call of K4WES. And in April of 2000, I finally upgraded to Extra class!

I am currently using a Kenwood TS-2000 rig at home into a 50 foot 18" face Hazer tower with a Force 12 C-4SXL on top of it and a M2 6M-5X beam on top of that. I use a Hygain rotor too. I have a half sloper, sloping to the east, from my tower for 80m and 160m. It does alright, but not very good. I also use a Carolina Windom 160 Special wire antenna up about 40 feet. I also have an R5 vertical up about 15 feet. And I put up a 160m inverted V dipole about 50 feet high, running north and south.

I have a Tono 777 TNC that I have been using for RTTY, since January 2002.

I am a member of the PVRC contest club (http://pvrc.org and http://pvrcnc.org) and OMISS Net (OMISS # 4161). Go PVRC!!! I enjoy working the CQ, ARRL, and many other contests too.

I am also an ARRL member and a life member of 10-10 International (my 10-10 # is 60118) and I enjoy collecting 10-10 numbers.

I currently have completed WAS (in both CT and NC), DXCC, 5B DXCC, and WAC. I am currently working on 5BWAS, IOTA, WAZ, WPX, and county hunting. I have DXCC confirmed on 10m through 80m (8 bands). I have the DXCC Challenge award too! Please see the chart below, for my band/mode counts.

A few of my latest stations worked for new entities are: V63 (MICRONESIA), ST0R (SOUTH SUDAN), 9M2TO (W. MALAYSIA), TL0A (CAR), PJ2/4/6/7 (All 4 entities), (VIETNAM), 3B7 (AGALEGA & ST. BRANDON), 3C (EQUATORIAL GUINEA), 3C0 (ANNOBON ISLAND), 4O (MONTENEGRO), FJ (ST BARTHELEMY), 6O (SOMALIA), VU7 (Lakshadweep Is.), 1A4A (Sov. Mil. Order of Malta), 9X (RWANDA), C2 (NAURU), ZL8R (Kermadec), Montenegro (YU6AO), 3Y (Peter I), 5T0CW (Mauritania), YV0D (Yves), KH9 (Wake Island), XF4 (Revilla Gigedo), ST0RY (Sudan), ZL7C (Chatham Island), ZC4DW (UK Bases on Cyprus), K1B (Baker and Howland), VP6DI (Ducie Island), XR0X (San Felix), VP8GEO (South Georgia Island), BD4XA (China), VU2ELJ (India), 3D2IR (Fiji), LU1ZA (South Orkney Island), and T2T (Tuvalu).

I QSL 100% via LoTW, the buro or direct. Please provide an SASE (or SAE and 1 GS or IRC) if sending direct. I also upload my logs via ARRL's Logbook of The World (LoTW), eQSL, and Club Log, usually each month or sooner.

I also use Global QSLing: http://www.globalqsl.com/

Interesting site to compare logs with others: http://www.clublog.org/

73 es gud dx de k4Wes

July 1-6, 2013:
Look for special event station K2J during the 13 Colonies Special Event operation, Independence week July 1-6, 2013. I will be using the K2J call during that time, so please QSL to the home station you worked or to W4MPS (he has all of the logs) with a #6 SASE for a QSL card. Here are all of the North Carolina K2J stations: K4WES, KI4VBA, N4MIO, N4YDU, W0UCE, W4MPS, and W4MY.
Full details at:
http://www.13colonies.info

And a picture of the QSL Card:

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