Biography

I have been in amateur radio since 1970. In addition to my present USA call, I am also VE2EQ (active).

Over the years, I built and used homemade HF transmitters (15W to 100W), built a Knight Kit T-150 transmitter, an Heathkit HW-12 (used it mobile), HW-32 (used it as alternate mobile), HW-101 (base - which I heavily "enhanced" back then with a RIT, a digital LED display and other features), HW-7 (QRP) and HW-8 (QRP) radios, owned a Yaesu FTDX-400 (great 400W radio for those days), a Kenwood TS-520S, a Yaesu FT-107DM (the cream color model - had all the line), a Kachina 505DSP, Q-MAC HF-90, along with many V/UHF voice & data radios.

Non-ham hobbies are Martial Arts (Tai Chi / Kung Fu), used to also be hacking Android super-phones (No longer needed as my current phone is a 256GB "OnePlus 8T+5G" on T-Mobile) and building high performance computers. My present system is an old but reliable and powerful liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-3770K (Unlocked and over clocked) | Cooler MasterSeidon N120M liquid cooling, ASUS P8Z77-V-Pro motherboard, 16GB (Kingston KHX1600C10D3B1k2/16G) RAM, ASUS GTX-1070 OC Strix (w/8GB DDR5) video. My boot drive is an OCZ Vertex4 512GB SSD (SATA-III) and my data drive is a WD "Black" 4TB, 7200 RPM (SATA-III). All running just fine in Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 w/current updates.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

RELOCATED TO CALIFORNIA - Located in Carlsbad, California (San Diego County) at DM13id

REMOTE HF BASE - Located in Grant-Valkaria (south of Palm Bay), Florida (EL97qx), is up and running and it's my main access method to HF at this time. See below for remote site details.

IMPORTANT - If my QSO with you is from my remote, I will say that I am in Florida (EL97qx). If I use my home station I will say that I am in California (DM13id)

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While in Florida, I lived through CAT 1 hurricane "Matthew" (no damage) and CAT 1 hurricane "Irma" (roof damage). I was told that I was now a Floridian ... so I moved to the land of earthquakes, fires and taxes aka California :-)

I access the airwaves via two methods: #1 is my shared remote base (~2482 miles from home). #2 is my local home station.

#1 Grant-Valkaria / Palm Bay, Florida (EL97qx) - Remote controlled Kenwood TS-480SAT and Flex 6400 using either a GAP Titan DX vertical antenna, a "Horse Fence" broadband 75/80m, another "Horse Fence 40m dipole (both are setup as a inverted Vs with the 75/80m apex at ~55 feet and the 40m apex at ~30 feet), and lastly, a 5-element HF beam. The HF beam is a TET HB35T with 5 elements on 10/15m and 4 elements on 20m. Remote rotator control is via a RemoteRig 1216H & 1216L combo. This will lets Allan (my host ham) manage the rotator from inside his home.

The two "Horse Fence" antennas are great performers as they cover all of 40m and most of the 75/80m band with VSWR below 3:1. These two "Horse Fence" HF antennas are connected to a remote controlled SPE 1.3K amplifier. We typically run the system between 500W-1000W.

The TS-480SAT is remotely managed from California via the control head while the FLEX-6400 is managed from anywhere I can be via the SmartSDR and SmartLINK software. I have operated the Flex 6400 using my "Microsoft Surface Pro 4" tablet over Wi-Fi. I have a headset and a small USB based knob/wheel that's much smaller and much lower priced than the "FlexControl". I do use a FlexControl in California as I bought one for my Flex-1500 several years ago. I still use the Flex-1500 for WSPR beaconing from California.

Note: WSPR operation from Florida (EL97qx) using ~5W ERP with the GAP-Titan DX. PSK31, FT8x, JS8call, etc. is also TS-480SAT & SignaLink USB but between 40W and 60W.

The amplifier is a SPE 1.3K FA and the remote control is via a Raspberry Pi3 (RP3) and VirtualHere (VH). VH is a USB extender so I can run the SPE "TERM" application in California and manage the amplifier in Florida. The RP3 provides the USB to Ethernet interface.

A NUC (Next Unit of Computing - mini-PC)) running Windows 10 Home and remotely managed via RemotePC provides a direct connection to the FLEX 6400 radio in case we need to flash new firmware of if the radio needs a direct connection for any maintenance.

For 6 meters, antenna port 2 of the FLEX-6400 is connected to an HF beam which is above the HF beam. Antenna port 2 of the TS-480SAT is connected to a M2 6M HO LOOP. The HO Loop antenna is at around 20 feet above ground and it's fed with a 40' run of LMR-400 coaxial cable. Both 6m antennas are fed with up to 100W from the radios.

#2 Carlsbad, California - Running either a FLEX-1500 or an Icom IC-7300 through a 40-foot stealth wire running from the 3rd floor condo window rail to a tree. The antenna is connected to a BALUN and a LDG AT100 tuner with a counterpoise. The home station is mainly used for DATA (FT8, etc.) and on 6 meters. Need to keep things very stealthy due to antenna restrictions.

Note: WSPR operation from my Carlsbad CA home (DM13id) is using my FLEX-1500 at 5W ERP with the wire and tuner in TX/RX. PSK31, FT8x, JS8call and JT65 is also done using the IC-7300 but between 40W and 60W. I also operate data via my remote in Florida. When using the remote station the Maidenhead grid is adjusted accordingly.



Other items ...

V/UHF, D-STAR & DMR - Icom ID-5100A & Kenwood TH-D74A. These are located at my home QTH. For repeater use, the ID-5100A is connected to "COMPACTenna" #1. Non D-STAR portable is a Yaesu VX-8R. Mobile is with a 50W dual band Icom IC-2730A (V/UHF, FM).

On the UHF-DMR side, I use an AnyTone 578UV tri-band connected to "COMPACTenna" #2. I also have an AnyTone AT-D878UV, a customized TYT MD-390 (custom FW) in addition to an Hytera PD-782. I also have a Hytera MD-782.

Why COMPACTennas? They are small, stealthy. tri-band and work well for their size (https://compactenna.com/). I live in a condo so the more the antennas are "invisible", the better it is. They are on a window guard rail outside the "radio room" on the top floor of this 3-story condo :-)

Internet appliances I use as my "private repeaters":

ZumSpot #1 Connected on demand to D-Star (REF 001C) on frequency #1
ZumSpot #2 Connected on demand to DMR TGI Net on frequency #2
OpenSpot V1 Connected on demand to DMR Brandmeister Net (TG91) on frequency #3
DVMEGA Cast with CASTAssist display - Connected to BM TG3022 (DMR)
DV4Home V2 Side A not connected. Side B to XRF12A (D-Star bridge)
Soapbox/Editorial - Some say that "Hot Spots" are not amateur radio. I consider them as enhancements and definitely part of amateur radio in the 21st century. I use my three Hot Spots at home to be able to have the freedom to connect to whatever system I want without affecting the local repeaters. In other words, I consider them my "personal linked repeaters". While mobile, I do connect through repeaters but at one point I will buy and use a Shark OpenSpot Vx in the vehicle.

Backup antennas --> I have one Hi-Q 4/80 Piranha, two MFJ loop antennas, the MFJ-1788 40m-15m and 1786 30m-10m, a "Tarheel LT-II" and a COMET CHA-250B broadband vertical (painted flat-black)

I QSL via regular mail, eQSL and LoTW