Biography

Hello. I grew up in San Bruno and have been an Amateur radio operator since high school in 1982. My journey started in 1978 with CB radio and shortwave listening. In 2023 I left the Bay Area and bought a 21 acre ranch in Carlotta, CA which is a rural community in southern Humboldt County in the Pacific Northwest. After more than 20 years living in an aprtment/condo I finally have the shack I have always wanted and with all the antenna space I need. I hope you enjoy my QRZ page. I try to make it more interesting than just radio.

I am very active on HF on a daily basis. I enjoy mostly ragchew, working a little DX and also plan on brushing up on my CW skills. After over 40 years as a Ham I am finally working towards my WAS and DXCC. I am in a pretty remote area and there is not much VHF/UHF activity but I usually have the K6FWR repeater system on. I also use Echolink to connect to repeaters back in the Bay Area. I have zero interest in FT-8, DMR and other new digital modes.

I have always enjoyed exchanging QSL cards, frequently send them out and will always return a card - no SASE required. I upload all contacts to LoTW for award credit and use the QRZ log as well. I still use a paper log for some contacts.

I spend my free time riding horses, working cows and doing "Cowboy shit" with my friends up here. Of course the ham radios are on in the shack every day and in between falling asleep on the recliner binge watching true crime shows like The First 48, Dateline or nostalgia like American Pickers and Antiques Roadshow, I'm checking into the shack to see what's going on on the bands.

I'm a member of the ARRL and OMISS # 15508.

Equipment

The desk was custom built.

HF: ICOM - 7600. It has the matching SP-23 speaker which looks good but I am not impressed with the sound of it so I use the YAESU SP-8 speaker. Ameritron AL-811H amplifier and a Palstar AT1500CV antenna tuner. Antennas are an Alpha Delta 80 meter Inverted V and a Kelemen 10/15/20/40 meter Inverted V. I have long term plans to put up a tower and yagis a few years down the road.

VHF/UHF: ICOM - 9700 for 2 meters/440 and an ALINCO - 235 for 220 MHz (Hello, anybody out there?!), and the antenna is a Comet - CX 333 tri-band vertical. , I have a YASEU FT-8900 for a secondary radio and just use a roll-up J-Pole tacked on my wall.

SCANNERS: Uniden SDS-200 digital scanner with a Diamond Discone antenna and Uniden BC785D.

I always monitor the Far West Repeater System (K6FWR) which runs up and down Humboldt County. It's pretty remote up here and there are only nine repeaters that I can hit and five of them are linked. There are no 220 repeaters up here so the lonely ALINCO sits on the National Simplex frequency. (Made two contacts so far). I am active on Echolink so I can keep in touch with old friends near the Bay Area and frequently monitor the W6VVR repeater.

When mobile I run a Yaesu FT-8800 in the Chevy Silverado. It's a bit of a unique setup. I wanted to remain somewhat stealthy and not draw attention so I found a company called US Communications that produced stealth antennas for ham radio and undercover law enforcement vehicles including a license plate frame antenna. (They are out of business now). They made a 2 meter vertical that replaced the AM/FM antenna on the truck and went through a triplexer so it still functioned on local radio. The only difference is that it is a bit shorter. For 440 MHz I put on a glass mount antenna on the rear window that resembles a cell phone antenna.