Last Modified: October 28, 2011
My personal motto...
Set the example, don't be one
My brother Evan, KØHYG (sk) and I have been interested in amateur radio since the early fifties. Our father purchased a Hallicrafters S40B in about 1951 from the old Radio Labs store in Kansas City, MO. My brother Evan got his amateur license in 1953. At about the same time, I discovered girls and it wasn't until 1970 that I finally passed my General exam. In due course, I got my Advance ticket, and then my Extra in 1975. This spurred my brother into getting his Extra sometime in the late seventies.
Soon after I got my Advance ticket, I started working for a wire rope company traveling the great plains and beyond. My first company car was a 1972 Ford Galaxy 500 into which I installed an HW32, a Heathkit 20 meter monobander. After all, it was 20 meters where the action was! And it still is!
My first antenna was a HyGain which worked fairly well, as it was a 15 meter unit with a longer whip to resonant it on 20 meters. I got this antenna for free as one of my father's pheasant hunting buddies was a VP at HyGain. The heavy-duty ballmount came from my brother-in-law's two way radio business (boy do I wish I'd have kept all of those mounts I collected!).
I was satisfied until my friend Mayo McAllister, WØCW (sk), sold me an LM400 power supply for $40 and started me on a life of high-power mobile operation. I quickly put together a monoband mobile amplifier using four 6KD6s in GG configuration. If the battery was up, you could get nearly 450 watts PEP out. This extra boost helped me snag Spratly Island (1S1A) among other rare (for a mobile) DX. From March 1973 when I first installed the amp, until late 1975, I worked about 220 countries. I transferred to Denver, CO late in 1973 and my travel time behind the wheel increased drastically. In the mean time, I had upgraded the rig twice. First to an NCX 3 and then to an NCX 5.
During the time frame between about August 1973 and February 1977, I was interested in county hunting as well as DX chasing. It is a great activity when the long skip is gone. I even operated SSTV mobile for a couple of years.
Jobs changed and I found myself working for John Capone, WAØADV, (a shirt-tail relative since you ask) at CW Electronics in Denver. If you're an old timer, and your memory hasn't gone with the wind, you might remember the machine gun ads which appeared in CQ magazine. The 'then' young lady was our office manager, Debbie. The car was an old 1928 air-cooled Franklin. One thing you didn't see in the photos were the four flat tires! It took 5 people to manhandle the beast out of its hiding place into a driveway so we could take the pictures.
Steve Schwartz, WAØJHX, took the pictures at the old Forney Museum in Denver, across Interstate 25 (Valley Highway) from the old Bronco Stadium. Steve's in the internet business these days, but you can still find him at Dayton, if you're lucky. About this time, I upgraded to an Atlas 215, then a 215X, a 210X (that's it in the photo), an IC701, and eventually to an IC730 and then an IC735. The amplifier changed too. First to a Metron solid state unit and then to a homebrew unit sporting four 4CX250Bs driven by a second alternator. I don't think you could do this nowadays as it is difficult to install such space-intensive hardware in the smaller, more efficient vehicles we all drive.
During most of the early 80s I stuck with just VHF/UHF in the vehicles as I spent most of my time traveling by air for StarTel® corporation. After I left StarTel, got divorced, and got reinterested in operating HF mobile again, I started using an IC751. Soon after I changed vehicles, and my new sub-compact wasn't large enough for the 751. After a short hiatus, a new marriage, and a new, larger vehicle, I purchased an IC706MkIIG. I have since replaced it with an IC-7000.
The most important part of my mobile installation (any installation, really) is the antenna, and mine is a Scorpion 680 with a 48 inch cap hat, mounted in the bed of my 2006 Honda Ridgeline. The Scorpion will easily cover 80 through 17. Before that, I used two different, lessor capable remotely tuned antennas. Previous to that, I used a 13 foot long, 20 meter resonant antenna, and an SG235 auto-coupler. Except for some reoccurring RFI problems on 17 meters, it work very well, at least on 20. There's more to tell about my installation here.
Today I find myself retired and living in Roswell, NM (which is better known as the Alien Nation). To be honest, we don't see too many aliens hereabouts as the townsfolk have discovered they taste just like chicken. By the way, the alien head with my call letters in Alien Cryptic font, was done by Fleet Services in Albuquerque. It was a special gift (?) from Peter Naumburg, K5HAB. The whole sign, plastered on the side of my Ridgeline, is viewable in the Photo Gallery. What started as a joke, has gotten serious enough to be featured in two magazines, as well as the local newspaper. I shall most certainly never forgive forget Peter for his generosity.
As for this web page (it is a long story, but I'll spare you the torrid details), it went live on April 26, 2004. It was first hosted by Akorn Access, which was owned by Bill Fisher, W4AN (sk), one of the founders of contesting.com and eham.net. After Bill's passing, and the closure of Akorn, I switched to iPower Hosting.
Incidentally, since the switchover to iPower's new hosting platform in April 2007, my up time has been virtually 100%. The total down time has been less than 8 hours total, in 4 outages; all caused by network problems beyond iPower's control. I don't believe any other hosting service could do any better.
The viewership has increased every year since. The latest stats (November, 2010), show the average unique visitors at just over 850 per day. On several occasions it has topped out at nearly 1,600 when it was featured on the ARRL site (three times actually!). Twice in 2008, once in 2009, and once in 2010, the hits have exceeded 1,000,000 in one month! The maximum bandwidth has gone past 25 Gb several times this year (2010), with the Photo Gallery the most popular attraction. Incidentally, the most popular article is Antennas, Commercial.
It also interesting to note, that nearly 500 visitors have the site as their home page. A fact that astonishes me. The most popular search phrase is the word mobile, with KØBG, and antennas vying for second place. Of the top ten referring sites (other than Google and Yahoo), two are dedicated to CB radio, one to DX operation, and one to contesting.
Had I known in 2004 that the site would have grown, and garnered the traffic it does, I probably would have thought second about doing it. As it stands now, I'm in a position wherein I cannot just quit. In any case, I thank my supporters, and Distractors, alike.
May you all drive safe, sane, sober, and non distracted!