Biography

You can read some interesting things about me and another 426 hams and my life in electronics and ham radio on QRZ.com.

https://www.qrz.com/db/wb2gpu

I am all about engineering fundamentals.

To me ham radio is all about making clearly readable contacts with distant stations and reception rules far above transmission. Anyone with money can buy a 1.5kw amplifier, tower, beam and an echo mike and play CB radio.

I can beat them all with Clean DC, Clean AC, Clean Audio, and Clean RF. When I say "clean," I mean you did everything possible in the design and construction of your shack to minimize noise (conducted and RFI), ground loops, arcing, crosstalk from interelectrode capacitance and inductive coupling? Not only is SWR 1:1 at the rig, but also at the antenna. Ham radio is not plug and play. No two stations face the same obstacles.

If you don't focus on these first, you are wasting your money and losing out on the best DX. If you can't hear them because of a high noise level, no antenna or amp will help you. I envy the hams out in the rural areas or sitting on cliffs overlooking the ocean. But even that won't matter if they are surrounded by switching power adaptors all over the shack and house, they have poorly bonded or unbonded equipment, or unshielded cables attached to sensitive circuits acting as antennas, or AC, DC, RF, and audio lines all balled up into a rats nest behind their desk.

For transmission, it's all about audio, not just power. When your audio modulation is great (not echoing and distorting to fill in the bandwidth), then maybe the ability to switch in 800 watts from 100 watts to rise 1.5 "S" units and hopefully above the receiver's noise level to compete with the big guns. There is no point in going to 1,500 from 800 unless you like to spend money and brag. I hear dumb hams every day running 1.5kw just to hear others say they are 59+10 or 59+20.... There is NO REASON to be over 59. 59 means 100% readable and extremely strong signal. If you are so loud, turn off the amp and stop splattering your local hams and save energy.

I work the world on 100W and a wire and compete with the pile ups. I won't add an amplifier or a beam or even a new rig until I know I have the cleanest energy conversion and transmission system possible on a working man's budget. Remember, if your shack is in the house, you are surrounded by scores of antennas each pulsing out the harmonics generated by everything plugged into a socket as well as whatever noise your neighbors 'systems are generating.

Too many new hams memorize the test questions, get an extra class ticket and go buy $15,000 in rigs, amps and antennas only to be bored two weeks after the plug and play spending rush.

Ham radio is a lifelong journey. You learn though reading, watching engineers on video and constant experimentation - it's not glorified CB. Sadly, more and more hams are nothing more than CB operators with more channels to brag on.

I also see many nice old hams on YouTube that buy everything under the sun and show you how to install things, but they have zero engineering experience and are nothing but great social media influencers and product salespeople. They read the instructions, install the item and then do poor demos that don't focus on the only two important factors which are:

1) Does it improve my signal to noise ratio, meaning can I read stations that before I could not hear and

2) Does it allow distant receivers to copy me that before could not copy me?

If the answers are yes and yes, then your next question should be why? Do I need to buy that thing, or can I accomplish the same results with some rewiring, tuning, attenuation, filtering, or the elimination of noise sources in my home and the canceling of noise sources coming in from your neighbors and the power grid? Is the coax low loss, is the antenna well designed, assembled, and installed for optimal performance?

I could go on. It takes a lot of study and experimenting to be a great ham, not simply a credit card.

See you on the bands.

Equipment

My current station is modest, and I can buy anything I want.

Icom-735 - (40 years old and out of alignment because I sold all my test gear long ago).

3kW, 10 to 40M EFHW installed as a Sloper, 90ft up and 35ft at low end with major lobes east and west, but I have had QSO's with hams 10,000 miles away in all directions. She tunes on 80 and 160, but it's far from optimal. I just don't have space for longer straight or sloping wires and placing 50ft masts on every corner of my property just would look horrible.

A Diamond Discone for a noise antenna / VHF antenna. I am working on adding an active mini-whip and a low to ground long wire as alternate noise antennas.

QRM Eliminator - which works miracles if used correctly.

3kW MFJ Versa Tuner V

Tiny Z-Match tuner for the noise antenna.

BHI DSP Noise Cancellation Speaker - worth every penny if you get one that isn't making wild sounds.

7-band equalizer for my headphones. Looking for ways to add EQ to my mic line.

Audio Technica Broadcast quality headset. So far not successful with adding an EQ on mic input.

Heil Foot Pedal

Custom built 100Ah lithium battery power supply to work on noise testing and to use as a emergency backup system. I can run the entire station on AC or DC with the flip of a switch without interruption.

When I have everything as "clean" as I can get it, then I will buy a Yaesu FTDX-10 for it's amazing hybrid SDR receiver and an 800W amp.

This one looks nice :-) https://avalontest.com/ifi-sccx800-solid-state-amplifier