I was first licensed in high school, as WA2SKY in 1961. After college, I moved to California and became N6NH. While living in suburbia during my career in high tech, I was not very active. Then in 2008, I retired on an 1,100 acre ranch in western Montana. Now I’m on the air quite a bit, chasing DX.

 

Outside of ham radio, my hobbies include fly fishing and travel. So you may find me asking questions about far-away places on the radio. For my wife and me, the tie-in with travel is one of the great benefits of ham radio.

 

This is a picture of my shack. Even though it was built in 2009, it is supposed to look like an old "shack!" We raise hay and put it into round bales shown below. The crank-up tower on the left now has a stack of two 6-element yagis for 6m.

 

 

I have two operating positions. One includes an ICOM 7800 with an Alpha 87a amp. Besides HF, I use the IC7800 on 6m and have an Alpha 8406 amp driving a stack of two 6m yagis.

 

 

I also have a remote K3 connected to an Alpha 9500 amp (shown below). My house is about one mile from the shack, so I use a K3/0 front panel to access the "real" K3 in the shack. The IP connection is provided by a 900 Mhz digital radio between the two buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of my 200' (60m) rotating tower in the Summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a frigid picture of the shack and tower in the Winter.

 

 

All of my yagi antennas are from Optibeam. The line up on the rotating tower is:

 

80m: 2 element yagi

40m: stack of two 4 element yagis

20, 15, 10m: stack of three 4+ element yagis

17 and 12m: 3 element yagi

6m: stack of two 6-element yagis

2m and 440MHz: one lonely vertical at 200 feet

 

 

Here is a picture of the shack and 6m tower.