Biography

As of April 2019:

Operating from 2 locations. Can operate either station local and remote in parallel so you may hear me from the RV, a hotel room, local and from the opposite home or even both homes at the same time, at any time.
Summer: Camano Island, WA about 1.5hrs north of Seattle at 430ft on a ridge. CN88sf
Winter: Bradenton FL, on the south side of Tampa Bay. EL87sm

I tend to check into the Sunday morning and Tuesday evening 2M SSB nets in Seattle area (Pacific Northwest VHF Society) as well as the Florida 2M FT-8 nights on Mondays and the 432voice/FTG-8 nets on Thursday (Florida Weak Signal Society. SO please pay attention to the grid report I send you!!!.

I am on FT-8 a lot on HF and just got the needed QSL confirmations for DXCC and 11 WAS awards from FL since a Nov 2018 start, mostly on FT-8 on HF and VHF+. I often run WSPR in less active times. In FL I run a QRP-Labs 1W Ultimate 3S transceiver with 6 bands loaded and receive on 1 band, 40M when the K3 is on the VHF bands (which is most of the time).

Equipment

Camano:
Elecraft K3
Elecraft XV144
6M wire dipole in attic with coverage mostly north and south.
2M KB6KQ Loop in Attic
80-10 EFHW long wire in attic and stapled around the outside of the east and north sides of the house. CCR apply so living with stealth antennas.
I occasionally load up the K3 and 2M transverter into a Jeep with some loops and/or a 144/432 Elk Antennas LP yagi.

Bradenton:
Elecraft K3 with internal 2M transverter option
160M to 6M: 100W to 6M wire dipole (north south) or 80M EFHW wire (east west)
144: 70W to KB6KQ loop at 15ft, Landwehr preamp
222: 20W to KB6KQ loop at 14ft
432: 60W to stacked KB6KQ loops at ~15ft (above and below the 2M loop), Ampire preamp
902: will be a 9 el yagi, 60-100W at ~13ft
1296: homebrew big wheel at 17ft, top of the pole at 40-50W out 72ft FSJ2-50 (3/8") heliax shared feedline via 6 band antenna switch
5.7GHz - tripod, 90mW to a BBQ dish
10Ghz: tripod mount, 90mW to a 1ft dish

A 10MHz OCXO feeds a 0-6GHz DigiLo PLL which in turn supplies the LO for the transverters up to 10GHz. This is packaged in a custom built hardware and software project that also does automatic LO and band switching and remote antenna switching with PTT, all configurable from menus on an LCD display and a rotary encoder/PB switch. It also has a GPS connected to display current time, Lat, Lon, and 8 digit maidenhead grid square.

My truck is also equipped with a IC-706mkIIG with M2 2M and 70cm loops, 6M 1/4 vertical
For roving in contests I add a 6M KB6KQ loop, 903 and 1296 loop yagis and 222, either a loop or a small LP beam or a triband vertical and at time load up the hoe stations K3 + transverters and amps. Also run a Clegg FM76 on 223.500FM.

From the RV I only operated remote into either home and can be found traveling between homes via the scenic routes.

I am living under no antenna/tower CCR rules here also so the VHF+ antennas are all hidden in the only non-Palm tree on the property. The EFHW wire is 130ft and oriented NNW to SSE strung up in 5 palm trees 15ft above a lake with clear horizon to the north and east. The 6M dipole is north/south facing.

Both stations are operable remote using RemoteRig 1258 MkII units with a K3-/0-mini remote control head. Digital modes are hosted on local computers for best performance.