Hello There!
Greetings from the Pacific Northwest!
The odds are good that if you made contact with me on the radio, it wasn't by phone. My voice tends to carry through my home, so I usually am on "non-verbal" modes like CW or digital. Just like my mouth, I often speak faster than I listen. As a result, I get a lot of practice sending "AGN?" when using CW.
Although my license is relatively new, I have been around the hobby for years and have a technical background. I enjoy learning things and passing that on to others. I've recently become a VE and look forward to helping new hams get their licenses.
In my adventures, I enjoy cluttering up the yard building wire antennas that often don't do what I expected. Dipoles, doublets, inverted-Vs, vertical dipoles, quarter-wave verticals, phased arrays, nested Marconis, Zepps, G5RV, and G7FEKs... I've made them all and hooked them up to either an FT-857D, an FT-991A, or an ICOM-7300 (usually with the amp off).
Stuffing my carryon bags with equipment is another radio related hobby. I have operated in all four hemispheres, three continents, eight countries, and in two languages. Often I end up having to improvise my antennas on these trips. I've thrown wires into trees, snaked HF antennas out windows, and turned a balcony into decent enough 30-meter antenna to reach out thousands of miles.
Finally, I do enjoy collecting ARRL and CQ awards and puttering along in various contests. While they are not for everyone, I find that it gives me some motivation and a way to measure my progress as an operator. In particular, they push me to try new ideas to improve my setup and operating skills.
Awards held:
- DXCC - (220/235 Confirmed) - Awards for 15/17/20/30/40 & Digital
- DXCC Challenge - (1001/1189 Confirmed)
- WAZ - Mixed, Digital, 20M
- ARRL WAS Mixed - 5 Band WAS plus 17/12
- ARRL WAS Digital - 5 Band WAS, 17/12M, FT-8, FT-4
- CQ WPX Mixed - 80/40/30/20/17/15, NA, Asia, Oceania, Europe
- CQ WPX Digital - 80/40/30/20/17/15, NA, Asia, Oceania, Europe
- CQ WPX Honor Roll (1352/600), 60M (175) [Pending]
- 60M "WAS"
Projects/Awards I'm still working on:
- WAS CW - (41/50, need AL, DE, GA, MS, ND, NE, NJ, SC, VA)
- WAS Phone - (40/50)
- WPX: AF (47), SA (80/95)
- VUCC 50MHz (64/100)
DX countries that I still need LOTW/QSL cards for:
- #3 Mount Athos
- #213 French Guiana
Hope to see you on the airwaves soon.
73 ES GUD DX,
KB2S
me @ kb2s.net