Biography

Hello from K3SOM, Rich in Beaver Falls, PA. It’s great that you’ve looked me up and I thank you for our contact. On HF I operate on SSB, CW, or one of many digital modes with either a Flex-Radio 6700, or an ICOM 7300.

A screen shot from my Flex 6700 is shown above from the 2017 ARRL WW DX SSB Contest.

Antennas include a ten-element Skyhawk 3X10 tri-band yagi (no traps), a horizontal doublet 140 feet long and up 50 to 70 feet that is center-fed with 560 ohm open-wire line, and a Pixel Technologies RF Pro-1B active-loop receiving antenna. An SPE Expert 1K-FA linear amplifier helps when the going gets tough.

QTH is actually in Chippewa which is on the hill about 500 feet above Beaver Falls. No surprise there!

I was first licensed in 1962 and I enjoy making contacts with people across the world, contesting for fun, field day, designing antennas with software, ragchewing, chasing DX, building equipment and many other aspects of the amateur hobby. Some of my other hobbies include fishing, amateur astronomy, photography, camping, travel and enjoying my six grand children.

With an electrical engineering background, my interest in amateur radio activities lets me continually learn and tinker as new technologies and challenges present themselves. On a recent field day, my weather balloon antenna that I designed . . . well, I’ll save the rest of that story for the next time we make contact.

Thanks for stopping by!

73, Rich

Equipment

Transceivers: Flex-Radio 6700, ICOM 7300
Antennas: 140-Foot Doublet, ten-element Skyhawk 3X10 tri-band yagi, active receive loop antenna
Amplifier: SPE Expert 1K-FA
Antenna Tuner: Palstar BT1500A, Palstar HF-Auto
PC: Dell XPS 720 Quad-Core, Corsair Dominator Memory, Windows 7, Premium Home Edition
Microphone: Heil PR781