Biography

Licensed as K6JRW in 1957 as Conditional (General) while in Japan with the Air Force. Operated as KA8RA at Misawa AFB, Japan (Club Station)from 1957-58. At that time bands were wide open to somewhere in the world 24-hrs a day.  

Over time I managed to upgrade to Advanced and then Extra. Over the past 66 years have been on and off the air many times.  In 2014, after 40-years, we  moved from my "wire" antenna location  (I really miss my  80 mtr sloping delta loop w/apex at 60'),  to an HOA community in San Juan Capistrano,  Orange County, CA). I was QRT from Aug. 2014 to June 2017.  Built a few stealth antennas with very limited success.  Spent hours on the web searching for the magic all-band invisable antenna.  Bah!

Oct. 2019:  Back on the air again  with some success.  I swapped out  40m inv. V for a G5RV Jr. on 25 ft. telescoping fiberglass mast and it's working well....well, at least on FT8.  Even worked into Siberia, Japan and Argentina.  Put up an 2m/70cm Ed Fong J-Pole at 25 ft and sort of convinced HOA that they needed a RACES member in the community.  

Aug 2020    Pulled down the G5RV Jr. in May and built a slightly sloping 40m off-center fed dipole with a 4:1 balun up 25 ft..  Most activity has been FT-8 on 20m and 30m with reasonable success.  I  Also put up a  ground mounted Wolf River Silver Bullet 1000  "portable" 10-80 vertical.  Interestingly  enough it out-performs the OCFD 75% of the time. 

Still August 2020  I couldn't understand why the OCFD was not hearing as well as the vertical so decided to check out the coax connections.  Sure enough, a short reared its ugly head.  Fixed and now hearing at least 1 to 2 S-units over the vertical.

July 2022:  Getting back on the air with a new rig and reconstructed shack.   Now I just need an antenna.

Aug 2022:  Finally got the new Zero5 27ft HOA "stealth" antenna up.  It's working like a charm.  It took me a while to setup the FTDX10 properly but once done things are working great.  Only FT8 to date and getting good reports.  Just worked 3D2USU (Fiji-5500 mi) with 30w on my first call to his CQ.  The Yeasu is a fantistic radio. It may take me a while to figure out how to use all its bells and whistles.  (i'm still working on that)

Feb 2023:  The Zero5 HOA Vertical continues to outperform many, but not all, of my antennas over the years.    Still no complaints from the neighbors.  I'm glad I'm still around after 84 years to see another rising sunspot cycle.  

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Equipment:

HF:  Yaesu FTdx10 LDG AT200PRO  Zero5 27Ft  HOA Vertical,20m inv V at 25 ft on telescopic fiberglass pole.



VHF/UHF  Yaesu FT-2800 assorted HT's.