I've been a ham since 1988 at the age of 13. My science teacher taught an after school ham radio class. By 1989 I was an extra class ham. Over the years I was mostly active with a few years where I didn't have a station due to living someplace I could not get a decent antenna up. In recent years I'm on the air almost every day.

Some of my interests in Ham Radio include CW, QRP, building radios, operating portable QRP, vintage radios, low earth orbit satellites, digital modes (rtty, hellschreiber, sstv, jt-65, psk-31), chasing DX (8BDXCC, WAZ, Challenge & 317/313 current entities), D-Star, EME, 6 meters, building antennas, and more. I'm always looking at new things to try in the hobby. I also enjoy listening for NDB beacons with an ARC5/BC-453. 

My wife and I bought our first home a few years ago so I've been enjoying having outdoor antennas again. Antennas here are 102ft dipole with 600 ohm feedline up about 60-70 feet, M2 3el 6m yagi on the roof, and a 1/4 wave 2m/70cm vertical at the peak of the roof. I am working on getting a 23cm setup for EME together. Currently also working on an antenna for Top Band. For now, I have a tuner built for 160m that will load up my dipole (which is way too short for 160..)

23cm EME is slowly in the works. I have a 10 foot dish, 300w amp, kl6m feed, kuhne transverter, g4ddk preamp, w2drz controller, custom plates and brackets for the tower. I had a slight project setback with the neighbors so I will revisit the dish install in spring 2017.. otherwise everything is here and built. I may need to make some alterations. Stay tuned.. 

Hope to see you on the air!

73,

James

This is the current shack photo (above)

This was my 2m EME setup (above). I had it setup at a friends house (it would not fit in my yard). I was QRV in 2012 for about 6 months. 1kw via 8877 amp on the right on cw and jt-65b.

 This was my 2m EME array from 2012 (above). 4 x 9el yagis (yu7ef design) that I built. My friend Andy WA2DKJ loaned the tower and provided much help in getting everything up. Also a thanks to Bob, ZL1RS who provided much help via email for the array construction

 Pixie II transceiver (above). I've made exactly 1 QSO with it so far. Building QRP rigs and putting them on the air is a lot of fun.

Picture from 2016 Straight Key Night (above).. the "rockbound" Heathkit HW-16 is the rig of choice. I used an HW-16 as a first rig back in my Novice days!

Boo! My 2013 Halloween pumpkin carving (above). Look for it in the 2014 October QST in the "Up Front" section! 

My wife Kieran (KC2TOP), my daughter Bridget and myself, taken June 2017 after my daughter's dance receital.