Biography

My name is Charles E. (Joe) Musgrave. I was living and working in Weyburn, SK. at the time of retirement and on until the fall of 2009. I am a 30 year veteran of the communication industry(worked for SaskTel), and enjoy all aspects of the industry. On 31 December 2004 I took an early retirement package and have enjoyed the time so far. There has been lots to do like redoing the Ham tower, the Ham shack, rebuilding the mobile station, helping out with the RAC as QSL Bureau manager, & all the honey do projects, and traveling around the west etc.etc.

I have been an Amateur operator since 1992. I hold two calls VE5JM & VE5CEM. I have been a short wave DXer from about the age of 8 years and still like that part of the hobby. In the 70s & 80s I played around with CB radios. I used them at home & in the truck (as a short haul trucker). The CB got me interested in amateur radio and in 1992 I got the basic license. I was a basic license until the summer of 2005, when Industry Canada made the change to no code license and I was grandfathered to HF. THANK YOU I.C. I have enjoyed the extended band operation like working DX & the nets on 20, 80 & 40M . I work the data modes on HF and try to catch up to some of the satellites or the international space station as they fly over. The station antenna line up in the old QTH was a Swiss quad at 60ft, a hy-gain 4element 6M beam at 55ft, a hy-gain 3element triband beam at 50ft. I also had a G5RV & a 40M loop coming off the tower at 50ft. On the house roof was a 2M & 70CM verticles used for satellite work. The radio line up at the old QTH was an ft-847 for HF,data & Satellite work, and an Icom 756 pro III for HF. for 2M work I had a few 2/70 cm radios on different antennas. I had a couple of computers for sound card data work.

I have moved my QTH from Weyburn, SK. to Lloydminster, SK. as of October 1st 2009. I am working on building a Ham Shack in the basement and I have an 80M V and a G5RV up at 30ft until I get the new tower installed. I hope to have a new tower up in the spring of 2011 with much the same antenna compliment as I had in Weyburn.

This is now the fall of 2011 and I have the Ham shack built and the equipment racks installed. The equipment is just put in, in no particular order at present. I have some work to do to get it sorted out.The tower and antennas are up and running. A Hy-gain 3 Element tri-band Yagi at 56 ft (17M), a 4 element 6M yagi at 61 ft (18.5M), an 8 element 2M yagi at 64 ft (19.5M) and a 2M/70CM Vertical at 65 ft (19.8M) all stand atop the 56 ft T-500 Trylon tower. Lower down (about 45 ft) are a few wire inverted "V" antennas for other bands. In the spring there will be a few changes on the tower, but the current lineup of antennas seem to be working well for now.

The station line at the new QTH for HF is an Icom IC-756 PRO III, a Kenwood TS-850s and a Yaesu FT-847 (also used for Satellite Work)running through an MFJ 969 tuner & an Ameritron remote switcher for the antennas. The main 2M station(used mainly for the wide area repeaters & scanning other things) is a Yaesu FT-100 and it can be an HF backup radio if needed. The secondary 2M station is a Yaseu FT2800M which is listening to our local repeater(Lloydminster) on 146.940/340 pr.

Some other things I am playing with are, do more in the photography hobby, as well as traveling to Rock and Country concerts in Canada. I also plan on checking out some of the great provincal & national parks we have in our country.

Well that's enough about me & my station. How about you? hope to find you on the bands sometime. 73 Joe VE5JM