Thread: Gun owners and Ham Radio operators

I'm ashamed to say what antenna I'm using, HA.

When I set up my shack I wanted the best setup I could afford plus a grand or two! Made a bedroom into a Radio Room. Feed-thru of all control and feedlines come thru the wall with quick disconnects, a dedicated power source to the room, Grounding system and Lightning protection from tower to shack, plus every 10ft and including the house, RF Filtering on everything to keep the wife and neighbors happy, custom Oak table top from wall to wall, ETC... You get the picture.

My antenna is a 3 element SteppIR so I'm resonant without a tuner anywhere from 6M to 40M. It is up 45ft. You can look me up on QRZ (K1ING) and see a couple pics. I haven't updated them in a while so I'm not really sure what's there but you can see my station.

So, if conditions are working as they should, there are not many places I can't reach out and touch with the help of a restored Drake L-4B.

So what is this Vertical thing I keep hearing people talk about?

We all do the best we can with what we can, I just couldn't settle for less when I got to understand what a shack could be.

I've always done a computer log plus my radio system is attached to the computer. Rotator and SteppIR control included. I see a spot on the web that someone worked and posted, then I mouse click on it and everything changes bands, modes, directions, and the antenna adjusts for the freq. Spoiled I know. I know HAM's that have an old Icom and a wire in the attic. Its all fun no matter what you set up!

My Elmer used to use a slinky antenna in his attic, until he had a metal roof put on his house. Now he doesn’t get our so good.

Originally Posted by Gasman

That is cool. I've been collecting QSL cards. One from each entity and state. Got all the states easy enough, but as far as the entity's go, I'm at 221 cards. ARRL keeps bothering me with donations as with the conditions, I bet they are having a hard time keeping the Rag alive.

I know this is going out of the range of the NRA, but what logging program do you all use? I use Logger32.

The Last Man Standing QSL card, signed by the Executive Producer, arrived today. Would like for it to have been signed by Tim Allen, but this may be rarer. I know a lot of hams sent for Tim’s signature.

I've been an operator for 25 years, mostly DX, and have operated CW exclusively and mostly on the WARC bands or on 10 meters. I've never even owned a microphone. Now, with the solar flux being what it is, or isn't, I just listen a tad.

Aloha!

This has been a good thread for me and hopefully will get me re-interested in putting my Ham Shack back together. It's bare bones as you will read.

When I lived exclusively on the mainland, I had a very large Ham Shack. About 8 QRO Rigs, about 20 QRP Rigs, a Linear Amp, all the accessories, and about 10 CW Keys. I also had a large collection of digital gear. One day about 15 years ago, I suddenly decided to liquidate. I did a shack clearing and I sold all of it except my QRP Rigs and 3 keys. I kept my original Vibroplex Bug, Iambic and basic straight key. My shack these days consists of QRP only (as posted above) but I sometimes wish I'd not sold ALL of my QRO rigs. I should have kept one. When I fully retire and get back into Ham operating with gusto, I'll likely want to buy another QRO rig and it would have been cheaper to simply keep one that I bought in the 90s at 90s prices.

My antenna farm was fairly extensive. I had two HF Verticals, two Windom HF antennas, a Zepp and a plethora of VHF and UHF antennas for Packet. I ran a popular HF to VHF Packet Gateway back in the early 90s that was widely used for traffic. All went except for the Fritzel 500 watt Windom.

It's interesting how suddenly I decided to get rid of everything that I had accumulated over about a 30 year period, but we all go through changes in moods and interests. At the time I remember thinking if I had one 4 band (10-20-30-40 meter) QRP rig, I'd be happy forever. I remember an electrical engineer I visited back in the 80s when I was a new General Ham and he was an Amateur Extra. He had ONE rig and ONE antenna. A Kenwood TS-520 with a Dipole up about 30' that he worked the world with. That was it. He said he was happy with that. He's the reason I pursued my Advanced and Extra Class Tickets, so I owe him a debt of gratitude. Chasing Rare CW DX on the bottom 25 as an Extra Class caught my attention. And I'll probably follow his lead with one-rig when I retire. One QRP Rig, but perhaps one QRO rig as well and two simple antennas. After Running all QRP since the 90s, 100 watts is going to seem like legal limit to me.

73

My shack has never been one of the showcase shacks that you see in QST etc. I started out with a $25 HT that I picked up at a flea market, granted it was a Yaesu FT-11R. That was it for awhile. I took my 5 wpm CW test a couple of times before I got my Tech Plus. I then studied and passed the General class. I still was using a HT, but I’d been gifted a Radio Shack 202, with a mobile antenna, speaker mic and a power supply. (I wasn’t working because of vision problems). Not long after I passed my General someone asked if I was going to wait for someone to give me an HF rig. I replied “no, I’ll work for it”. A few years later I was back to work and I bought my first Hf radio, an Icom IC-745 (still have it). I then bought a dual band mobile, a TMV7A (the blue faced mistake. You couldn’t use it in daylight). When that one bit the dust I bought my first brand new radio- an Alinco DR-635. From the time I bought the Kenwood I had been using a copper j pole that I bought from a local ham who made them. It was starting to get a little sketchy. So when I bought the Alinco I purchased a home brew open stub j pole. (For the ic 745 I had grabbed a vertical that was being tossed. The vertical lasted a year or two before it became useless. I then had a buddy home brew a tri-band dipole tuned to 20.40 & 80 meters. When I got my disability back pay I bought my second new radio - another Kenwood TS/480sat with the Kenwood MC-60A desk mic, and the Kenwood SP-23 external speaker. I was a member of Navy MARS at the time so I sent the radio back to Kenwood as soon as it got here from the dealer, and had the MARS mod done. Two different ice storms took out two of my dipoles and I’m getting ready to order a Hustler 5BTV. That’s it, 3 radios the IC-745, TS-480 and Alinco DR635 dual band, 2 antennas an open stub j pole and the new Hustler. I wish I’d continued to upgrade before I obtained my HF radios because it’s been long enough that it’s dificult to get back into it once the momentum is lost.

Im running a couple Icom 706mk2g mobile all banders and a Yeasu ft1000mp for my trancievers in the shack. I had 3 other in the past. A 950 yeasu and a couple other older rigs i just dont remember much of. One was an icom and one a kenwood.

I too started with an HT but that lasted about 3 months. At 5hat point i got my General then 2 months later got my Extra. I got the Extra just for bragging rights. Although i do find that little extra area in the bands for Extra is a much nicer and less crouded place to go.

The new thread on the qsl cards will be fun. I will post a new one every few days. Dont want to over do it right off the bat. Anyone got a card from north korea. Ha.

Or in this thread i guess it Hi not Ha.
Dit dit dit dit dit dit

How about a couple keys...


I never did get a bug.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Anyone got a card from north korea. Ha.

I worked P5/4L4FN from Tonga, on 15M SSB. DXCC accepted it, so it's
a good one. I'll look for the card, and I'll post it when I find it. I have
a few others you might like, too. They're all in storage, so gimme a while.

dit dit

I’m one step closer to being back on the air. My new HF antenna should be delivered on Monday. I decided to go with the Hustler 5BTV. I’ll need to add a 6meyer antenna in order to fully utilize my radio, but there’s no hurry there. I’ve got utility crews scheduled to mark all underground lines, water and phone are the only two running through the yard, but I don’t want to drive a post through either one hi hi. Especially after the last couple of days here on the farm. Water department informed me a couple of days ago that I had a 2,000 gallon per day leak. Needless to say I spent a couple of days without running water.