WU9B
I am a Cheesehead from Wisconsin and escaped the cold WX via a QSY to Arizona in 1995. After 8 years of Deed Restrictions and CC&Rs in Scottsdale I moved to Rio Verde, AZ which is a few miles North and East of Scottsdale, AZ (Phoenix, AZ) … I have been enjoying ham radio with a real tower and no HOA for 10 years now.
I installed a US Towers MARB770 in June of 2003 and have a few pictures of that at http://www.qsl.net/wu9b/
In the picture above, looking due east, the QTH borders the 3 million acre Tonto National Forest. Four Peaks in the background graces the majority of all Arizona automobile license plates.
Most of the time it is sunny here. These are the skys during our summer monsoon season. This is my a 42+ year old Mosley TA33 and a 260 ft dipole fed with ladder line up at 72 feet. I also run a Cushcraft and Butternut vertical.
At age 14, I was licensed in 1968 as WN9ZSO and in 1970 I upgraded to General as WA9ZSO. I always wanted a shorter call sign so in 1990 it became apparent the shorter 2X1 calls were running out so I dusted off my CW skills and upgraded to Extra.
In 2012 I went solar in the shack…
The Big Ugly Dish hasn't seen much action recently so I decided to add some solar panels instead.
I picked up a bunch of solar panels at an estate sale. These were new in the box and affordable.
Here you see a Trace (Xantrex) C40 Charge Controller also obtained from the estate sale and two 6 Volt Golf cart batteries from Costco installed in an old TV cart. I use the MFJ-1129 to distribute DC power to lighting and all 12 volt equipment and the MFJ-4416B battery booster to maintain a steady voltage on my radios. The batteries crank out about 220 amp hours at 12 volts. I never run out of power, not yet anyway. I also have but rarely use a 600 watt AC inverter connected to the batteries and a 5KW gasoline generator that can easily be connected to the AC mains if needed.
I am a member of the Arizona Outlaws Contest Club. However my job requires a lot of weekend hours so thankfully, there's always chasing DX! I am also an occasional member of the CADXA; the Central Arizona DX Association.
Proud member of the ArizonaOutlaws Contest Club
and occasionally, theCADXA.
Hope to work you again soon!
My vacant land prior to the home build as purchased in 2002
Need my QSL card? Print this and fill it out, I trust you. Or send me one of yours. I QSL 100%
Sonoran Desert Winter Sunrise
One morning I woke up to find these guys outside my window…
Wild horses… Couldn't drag me away (Sorry, Mick)
If you ever visit Arizona, you must see Sedona (and the Grand Canyon) …
I have to catch these varmints on a regular basis…
My buddy Leonard enjoying a little sunshine topside on the view deck…
Twin sister Lily jumping the parapit walls…
She's so dang cute…
What a guy!
Goat Mountain…
Sun Snuggles…
Fannie and Gladys hard at work…
