Timeline

Here’s a timeline of some of my amateur radio “highlights”. I keep up with this post from time to time, so that when I get older/have dementia/alzheimers, I can have someone read back to me some of the things I really enjoyed over the years.

Not much happened between 2019 and 2022. Our club did “field day” each year, which was of course fun and sometimes exhausting. In July of 2022, I purchased a new “dual sport” Kawasaki KLR 650 motorcycle, which I plan to do some portable work (QRP) with the equipment given to me by an /sk’s XYL. I want to carry on with his work in QRP ops, which was something I had hoped to get into at some point anyway. So, I am going to use his FT817 w/tuner and my Super Antenna, and go out into the world and work HF (and some VHF) portable, from what I can carry on the back of the bike. In June of 2020, I purchased a small plot of land on top of a mountain in the Newport area of Danville WV. It has an access road and it’s one of the taller “peaks” in the area. I’ll eventually be putting up a tower for portable use.

March 22, 2019: WV0CQ signing off, N8GB on the air. I decided to migrate to a 1×2 callsign for the single purpose that it’s easier to operate DX with a shorter callsign. I did my due diligence and checked to see what was available and chose the best callsigns I could, at the time. N8GB has a decent phonetic rating, as for CW, it’s ok, not great, but I won’t be doing CW, so that really won’t matter.

December 2019: Here’s a recap of the going’s on for 2018. Over 2018, I’ve been involved in a few projects with the club (WV8CCC.org) including tower work and helping the local VFD mutual aid association with the Cazy repeater. We’ve also had an outing to Barger Springs WV. I’ve worked portable on battery power a couple of times, did some mountain topping. Overall, I did not work SSB as much as I would have liked, basically because I was burnt out of amateur radio because of doing all of the FT8 work during the first part of the year. We did Field Day and had a great time, but because I was still burnt out from FT8, I did not spend much time on the mic. My plans for 2019 include changing the burnt out feeling I had over FT8 and DO MORE SSB work, that’s what I love and that’s what I am going to stick to. I didn’t get into amateur radio to do digital. It’s just not my thing. I love working DX SSB and operating portable SSB, and that’s what I am going to concentrate on.

February 2018: Finished out 310 +/- overall in the International Grid Chase, showing 7th in the State of WV (for now), has to be higher because a couple of the guys above me didn’t do much in the month but there’s no way to separate the scores out as of this date). That’s out of about 25600 participants overall. I’ll take that! Coal Country Amateur Radio Club is here to represent! I am done chasing grids, back to chasing DX. I don’t have the time it takes to put into the grid chase to be competitive. I did everything within my power to score as much as possible for February. Now, it’s spring, time for other things, like road trips in Veronica 🙂

January 2018: Began operating Digital, FT8. Nabbed the 3G9A/MM (Bouvet Island DXPedition Team /mm callsign) onboard the ship, 200 yards from the Coast of Bouvet in Grid Square JD15 on FT8/20m.

December 2017: Finished out the year with 1000 contacts on the WV0CQ callsign.

January 2016: Told the new WV ARRL Section Manager to piss off.

February 11, 2015: Obtained Official Registration as an ARRL Instructor.

January 24, 2015: With the addition of WH6S in Hawaii, finally completed my WAS.

January 23, 2015: Appointed as the Webmaster for the WV ARRL Section.

January 16, 2015: Accredited as an ARRL VE.

December 30, 2014: WV8JBH signing off, WV0CQ is on the air!

December 5 2014: I passed my Extra!

November 22, 2014: 365 contacts in a year!

March 15 2014: I acquired by General ticket after being a Tech class operator for several months.

November 9 2013: Finally decided to take the big step and obtain my Tech class ticket!

On 09 November, 2013, that all changed! I obtained by HAM Technician license. Later, on Saturday 15 March 2014, I ventured to the Charleston WV Ham Fest. After finding out just 24 hours or so before the ‘fest that they would be testing, I decided to study. I got about 3 hours of studying in for my General Test. I had previously studied for about a week back in January, thinking I would test soon thereafter, however that was cancelled, so I was waiting… I didn’t think I would have the opportunity to test before fall, so I didn’t study. Well, after cramming last night, I took the test today and only missed two questions! Whoop! Whoop!

On 5 December 2013, I scored my first HAM QSO/QSL with AE7KI in Washington State and then two others the following day.

One year to the day of obtaining my first HAM QSO, I once again ventured to the Kanawha Radio Club and took the test for Extra. I am happy to say that I passed the test, only missing 3 questions!

Beginning Stages of the “Console Project”

Notice the “rivets”, this is my first experience with riveting things together rather than bolting or screws.

Current Equipment List (Mobile):

• RCI 2970 10/12m 200w
• Wilson 1000 roof mounted
• Baofeng UV-5R+ HT
• Yaesu 8900R
• Diamond 8900 lip mounted

Completed Console Pics:

Console with lid open

Console with padded top

Current Equipment List (Primary Station):

• Yaesu FTdx1200
• LDG AT-600 Pro II Tuner
• Yaesu 8900R Quad Band
• Whitestick 2m/70cm Dual Band
• 40′ Tower
• 6 Band HexBeam 20-6
• Yamaha MG 10/2 Studio Mixer
• Samson Servo-170 Studio Amp
• Polk Audio 4″ Shelf Speakers
• Motorola BDN664BC Headset

Cabin and Backup Equipment:

• ICOM 725 HF Rig
• Portable 48′ military antenna mast
• Eagle One Vertical HF Antenna
• MFJ Audio Filter
• MFJ Versa Tuner II – Antenna Tuner
• 2m/70cm J-Pole on 20ft antenna mast + 10ft conduit.

Truck:

• FT857d
• Tarheel II Antenna
• Diamond 8900 Antenna

In the truck, I did away with the console and went with the HF/2m/70cm 857d. This gave me my center seat back and eliminated several pieces of equipment by replacing those with one piece of equipment. Let me tell you what, I LOVE the 857D. That is a little work horse of a radio. Very happy that I purchased that radio!

In the Shack:

I re-purposed a standard bedroom dresser (thanks to my wife for the awesome idea). We took the finish off, removed some drawers, replaced some bracing, added some bracing, primered, painted and added some baskets. Here’s the final product:

I now have my “shack” centered around this re-purposed dresser (bureau) where I keep my radio, mixer and soldering station.

My office desk was a cheap corner desk I obtained from Staples about 10 years ago. It was slowly but surely falling apart. I decided, why buy when you can build? Amirite? So, the next thing to happen was this:

I’ll try to get some pics of the shack now that I have everything in place. Of course, that will entail getting everything cleaned up and properly stowed, so, it may take a little while 🙂

May 2014 – Obtained an ICOM 725 and the MFJ Antenna Tuner from KB8GLY. I didn’t have a proper power supply for this rig, so transmission was out, but I was able to get a di-pole installed and was up and listening the evening I obtained the rig. I am going to utilize this rig until I am able to purchase the Yaesu 1200, which should be in the next couple of weeks.

11 June 2014 – Finally obtained the Yaesu FTdx1200 rig. Got it up and running on the Eagle One vertical antenna. After initial setup, found that even with the MFJ Antenna Tuner I obtained for the ICOM 725, I was still only able to tune 17m and 6m below a 3:1 (going to be working on that soon). After getting 17m running, I was able to make several QSOs from Europe, Cuba and the U.S. I find that this type of radio operation, from the comfort of my own home, sitting in a high back “big boy” office chair will lead to many hours of lost sleep.