Biography

Hello. My name is Shon Edwards and my call is K6QT. I began to be interested in ham radio while in 7th grade at Orem Junior High School in Orem, Utah, USA. My teacher was Bill Andersen, W7UKD, now SK. He had a wonderfully huge 80M yagi antenna on the roof of the school and a radio in the classroom. Often he would contact and let us talk to people all over the world. I was so fascinated! My mother bought me a Realistic 0-30 MHz receiver and I was able to listen to ham radio and s/w from all over the world. This was in the mid-80's, when the solar cycle was incredible. I had a 50-foot wire and could hear anything on the air.

Later, in high school, in Provo, Utah, I had another "elmer" who taught me a lot about radio. He was my Physics and Electronics teacher, Vern Bangerter, W7GAG. He was very active with slow scan tv and used to send pictures of our class around the world. I was again very interested in this wonderful hobby.

Well, it wasn't until I was 31 that I got my license. I studied so hard that it was harder than my M.A. degree, and I was far more pleased at getting the former than the latter. Additionally, I was friends with the W5YI CVE, who teased me that during my 20 WPM CW test I had missed passing by 1 question! Truth was I had passed it by 1! I was so relieved.

I wanted to give back to the ham community and the community in general in some way, so I became a VE. It was the most rewarding and wonderful thing I ever did with ham radio.

Well, it didn't stop here. I convinced my wife, N0RME that she should get her license. She wasn't interested in anything but communicating with me, but she does a very good job with knowing the rules and following ham radio. When my oldest son became 10 years old, he expressed an interest in radio, as well. I taught him and he was intense, sucking it all up at an incredible pace. Within one week, he was able to take and pass the Technician test. Within 2 more weeks, he was ready to take his General, which he also passed. In another two months, he had passed his Extra! The same night he passed the Extra, his twin brothers had also passed their General tests. James, my oldest, is now AE7IE. The twins are Jared, N2JAE and Seth, N0SRE. My youngest son, Isaac, has an intense interest and we are teaching him (James and I (James is now 14 and an exceptional teacher -- he has also successfully remembered and taught people for the Extra exam)) currently. He is nearly done studying and will soon test for his Technician license. He wants the call sign K7ICE, for his initials.

Well, that's the short version. My family and I love to make contacts from around the world. We sponsored a CW class through our kids' radio club, NUYARC (Northern Utah Youth Amateur Radio Club), which the kids and other neighbors attended. They all were able within 3 months to copy at 10 WPM, which was amazing, I thought. Jimmy was able to make his first contact on CW and has a QSL from a gentleman in Washington State. This was one of the highlights of his ham experience. We love radio so much.

Equipment

Equipment is simple and includes as a transceiver a Yaesu FT-857D. My antennas are Butternut HF6-V, for 60 M a Falcon λ/2 -wave 60 M dipole. Also, as part of my base station operation, I have a Motorola Spectra for 33 CM (40 W) and an antenna: ZDA Communications ZDADJ928-17YG, a 17 DB gain yagi antenna. It is 25 feet away, so I have used LMR-900 cable with a jumper to conserve the signal power, and it seems to work fairly well. I also have several mobile radios. In two cars I have Yaesu FT-7900's for 70 CM and 2 M. I also have a Spectra Motorola (40 W) in my car and a 1 M Alinco DR-235TMkIII (25 W). I also have one of these as part of my base operations. I have numerous HTs, about 22. I have almost all brands and can say definitively that the Yaesu FT-60R is the best dual-band HT of them. It can hit just about anything and in general is easy to use and is a wonderful little radio. On the other hand, the two worst HTs I have are a Yaesu VX-7R and an 8X-DR. Although they have wonderful functions and can do simplex on 5 W, 6 M for miles, I am unable to hit close repeaters with them on 2M ans 70 CM. It seems the more bands available on the radio, the worse it performs. I have many numerous antennas for these mobiles and HTs. My favorite are the Maldol antennas, which unfortunately, are no longer in production. Well, that's about it for now!