First licensed in 1980 as KA9IUX. I was always the kid back in the 60's tearing apart TV sets and listening to AM, short and long wave radio. It was inevitable I would become a ham. After suffering though some terrifing car rides with other hams to the Federal Building in downtown Chicago, I managed to upgrade first to Tech and later to Advanced. Callsigns changed to N9CIW and later KD9WK. I struggled to pass the Extra code and did. When the vanity callsign program came along I jumped at the chance to get a 1x2 call.
I have always had an interest in DXing and contesting. Been on and off the air several times over the years. Now that it's 2010, the interest has been rekindled. Give me some time, and my logs will appear on LOTW, eQSL and here on QRZ.
Current antennas & equipment:
Force 12 C3E @ 68'
6M7 7el 6 meter @ 62'
Arrow 2m/440 J pole at 70'
Zero-Five 1/4 wave 40m vertical.
Here is the picture of the feed. It has changed a few times. I have long radials running east & west. I will be adding shorter ones in the other directions this spring. I have no illusions that the red magnet wire coil will offer lightning protection. It's just there to bleed off static charges.
80m Inverted V apex @ 55'
KU4AB 6m loop SQ-50 (not using the vertical element at this time.)
I need to put it to use. I find I listen on the 6M7 all the time.
Yaesu FT-2000D
Kenwood TS-850SAT
Yaesu FT-650
Yaesu FT-7900
Henry 3KD Premier 8877
Alpha 8406 6m (Has Arrived!!!)
Johnson Viking Kilowatt Matchbox
Waiting in the weeds:
160m Inverted L
Force 12 Tango 34 (3el 10m and 4el 6m on one boom) Was damaged waiting to go up. Need to replace some tube.
Shack and antennas in a constant state of change.
Isn't that pretty! Good reason why I spend so little time on 80m. To the left and right of center are noise sources. Plasma tv's maybe. The spiky one on the right has an audio component. Soon as it gets dark the display washes out with noise and weak signals are gone. 80m Inverted V, apex around 45 feet. The PowerSDR display has been zoomed in to try to help separate signals as you will see in the next image. No pre-amp, 3kHz NS filter, no VRF. Adding attenuation brings everything down evenly.
My current receive antenna configuration. It's my C3E beaming to the east with the Inverted V below it with the legs mostly E&W. This is fed into an ICE receive antenna port protector then into the receive antenna jack on the FT-2000D. There is a two step pre-amp in the rig and this is with it at maximum, 3kHz NS roofing filter inline. (The VRF will reduce everything a bit further, but doesn't help on these strong noise sources scattered across the band.) I now have a usable noise floor, although the C3E isn't tuned for this band, it does give me the ability to work some DX. I have been sitting on 85 countries on 80m for years. Finally got motivated to do something about it so I can complete the 5BDXCC. This contest isn't done yet, but I already have 18 new countries to add. Things are looking good for finishing that award this year. Notice the noise sources are still there, but I was working stations among the spikes on both sides of 3.515. Need a real receive array.
73
Greg K9ZM
