Greetings from Bloomington Minnesota, USA

Bloomington is in the metropolitan area of Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota. It has a population of about 85000 and has more jobs per capita than either Minneapolis or St. Paul (quote Wikipedia). Its economy includes headquarters of major companies such as Ceridian, Donaldson Company Inc., HealthPartners, Toro and is also the home of the Mall of America, Minneapolis StPaul International Airport and numerous other companies large and small. It is the fifth largest city in Minnesota. A great place to live, that is if you like cold weather, lots of jobs here too.  Unemployment is at about 2.2 percent, March 2015.

The deer like to raid the bird feeders.  The trail camera uses infrared as a flash that way the critters won't be spooked. 

 

I was first licensed in 1960 as KN9VUJ, I'm an old Vince Lombardi Green Bay Packer fan. I upgraded to General in 1961 then to Advanced in 1968 and  Extra in 2000.

One of my Wisconsin license plates off my "56" chev while on active duty at the 343rd fighter Group, Duluth IAP Minnesota. The chevy was a good car. It got me to a lot of places including California. 

 

 

After years of procrastination I finally received my DXCC certificate. It was done entirely using LOTW. Without LOTW I doubt that I would have recieved the needed confirmations due to cost and time. LOTW is a BIG advantage these days. I do still have a large stack of QSL cards from my early days of DXing back in the 1960's and 70"s. As of March 2015 I am at 203 confirmed. 

Twin City DX Association member.  The TCDXA is looking for new members.  We support DXpeditions all around the world. 

 

 

 

This is the mighty Elecraft K3 under construction. It's about a 10 hour project, no solder but quite a few machine screws, washers and nuts to assemble. Excellent construction manual, you can't go wrong if you read and follow the manual and don't skip or try to shortcut the assembly instructions. The K3 is a top notch radio and top notch support from Elecraft, none finer. I  added the Elecraft P3 with VGA option panadapter. The VGA option allows me to use a 23 inch LED backlite monitor with the P3.  This setup gives me a very high quality pan scope without the need for a computer.  With the new synthesizer board it is back at the top of Rod Sherwoods receiver list.  

 

Here is an Elecraft P3 screen capture at 10 Khz span.  The span can be extended all the way to 200Khz and down to 2 Khz and everything in between.

 

This is a screen capture on the P3 of commercial radio station KFAN.  The P3 doesn't need an external computer.  The K3 P3 combination work together seamlessly.  

 

The picture below is my KT34M2.  The KT-34 has been replaced by a SteppIR 3 element antenna June 2013.  It's not as beautiful as the KT34, but it allows me to have three elements on all bands 20 thru 6 meters, I've been able to work quite a bit of DX on 12 and 17 meters with the SteppIR.

 

This is the SteppIR three element yagi installed on a Tri-Ex WT-51 tower and the rotor is a Yaesu 2800DXA (not shown).  So far it has worked very well. 

Ground testing the SteppIR. The assembly, except for attaching the fiberglass tubing, was done in the garage.

This shows the controller and my antenna analyzer. The antenna analyzer is model AA-54 and the best instrument I've used for this sort of thing.  I've tried a couple others, but this one beats both by a long way.  It is easy to use and the battery pack is easy to change out and only a couple of AA cells.  It is the best analyzer going, IMHO. 

 

These are internal pictures of the SteppIR EHU prior to installing the cover.  The choke seen on the right, the elements are shown on the reels.  It's been up on the tower now for almost 2 years and trouble free, where's some wood!!

 

In this photo (K9VUJ photos) the choke can be seen on the top and the beryllium/copper tape elements. 

 

 

Another photo by K9VUJ of the tape elements on the reel and partly into the tubing.  The choke and the SO connector at top right.

 

 

 

A picture from the Duluth Minnesota shipping canal pier with Duluth in the background is chief executive officer Shirley. I love her dearly.

 

 

Here we are, Shirley and I on a plane trip back from an airshow at Fallon NAS, Nevada. We had a great time. I took this picture using a Nikon Coolpix 950.

 

After fighting breast cancer for 22 years and then a stoke on July 31, 2015 Shirley slipped away quietly early in the morning, May 6, 2016, as I held her hand for the last time.   Rest in peace Shirley, I miss you. 

 

The K9VUJ stationmaster is taking a break from supervision. Naps are good for the body and soul. Besides, it is hard work managing op K9VUJ. Our cat is getting up in age now. Every day she is with us is wonderful, she has been a very long term friend and buddy. She knows our every habit.

 

My Stationmaster, friend and buddy of 19 years and 8 months passed over the Rainbow Bridge November 25, 2011. She is missed a lot. ;(

Rest in peace Calley.

 

Shirley, the CEO, hired a new stationmaster to watch over K9VUJ operations. Holly-Dee is a hard taskmaster, but fair and keeps K9VUJ under close supervision at all times. The first order of the day was: Get this desk cleaned up. It is a supreme mess!!  I'm still working on the cleanup, it's not easy. 

 

Burghardt's store front. We made a lot of trips over to Watertown SD for new gear. It was a friendly place, with good old fashioned Midwestern hospitality. Jim was always ready to greet, chat with and sometimes take to lunch customers and friends.

 

 

73

Dale, K9VUJ