Welcome to my Station

Ex .

Hi, I'm Chuck, KR6C ex KA6CSC.  I received my Novice ticket on 8/11/78.  I upgraded to General class on 12/7/83 then to Extra class on 2/8/96.  My call changed from KA6CSC to KR6C on 2/12/97.  I am a Past President of the Southern California DX Club (2001) and I invite you to visit our site at  www.scdxc.org. 

Over the years I have slowly changed equipment in and out.  I started with a Kenwood TS-520SE and dipoles then went to a TS-830S (great radio) and HF9V vertical.  I have worked a lot of great DX over the years with very basic stations.  My current station consists of a Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark-V Field with a complement of Filters, a Dentron MLA-2500 Amp and a Dentron Super Tuner.  Since the Super Tuners did not come with a bypass setting, I mounted a pair of back to back Daiwa 2-port switches on top of the tuner to easily switch it in and out. 

Other accessories include an old Palomar Engineers SWR/Power meter and a Skytec CW-1 "tuned" speaker.  The black box at top left is my K9AY type loop antenna controller and the blue box is an Array Solutions RatPak remote antenna switch controller.   To the right is 2M voice / packet setup (Azden PCS-4000 & AEA PK-88).    

I fabricated a low impedance single point ground for the equipment, filters and pre-amp using a piece of 1"x8"x4' piece of wood mounted to the back of the operating desk.  The wood was covered with copper roof flashing and all radio/computer equipment grounds to this panel.

I  fabricated a 2" wide low impedance ground strap from the copper flashing material which connects the equipment ground to the antenna single point ground entry panel outside.  

The ground panel is a standard electrical box I bought at a Home Depot.  The box is mounted directly to the fence and the fence is grounded to the tower.  I drove a new ground rod in next to a drain pipe.  

I mounted a piece of the flashing material on the inside.  I used a combination of Alpha-Delta and ICE suppressors.  I added another set of control lines but didn't have room for another manufactured suppressor box so I used a terminal block and individual Transorb suppressors.

In addition, I installed an ICE AC Power Main Suppressor for whole house power protection and noise filtering.

Close-up of the new ground rod and straps.  The original rod to the right was part of the original station setup after move-in many years earlier. The service and radio ground rods are tied together. 

The cables are tied to the bottom of the fence for appearance then run under a threshold and continue to the tower.

All the HF antenna feeds connect to the Array Solutions "RatPak" 6-port remote antenna switch.  The two from the 2M antennas are grounded just above it.  The white Balun to the left is the low-band feed.  It connects to a remote relay switch at the station so I can select the 80 or 160M tuning caps. 

Here's a close-up of the 75/80/160 tuning network.  The feed from the balun (top left) connects to a DPDT switch, and the shunt wire exits on top right.  The switch is used to change between the 75/80 and 160 tuning caps. The cap on the left is the series (gamma) cap for 75/80.  You can see a motor connected to the cap so I can remotely tune between the bands from the station.  The pair of caps on the right is the Omega match for 160. 

The tower is a US-Tower TMM433HD (33' fully extended, 12' retracted) with a Ham-IV rotor and 15 foot mast.  The top antenna is Force-12 C4SXL (40-10M) at 40 feet.  The lower antenna is a Cushcraft A3WS+30M (30,17,12M) at 35 feet.  Due to vertical space limitations, I had to mount the beams perpendicular to each other to reduce bad 15M interaction.  This also helps reduce the wind torque.  For the low bands I shunt-feed the tower for 75/80/160M.  You can see the feed wire just under the 2M beam).  The Diamond F-22 antenna on the top of the mast is for the local DX Cluster.  The 2M beam points to the So Cal DX Club Repeater (W6AM).  Its not optimal, a 40 foot top-loaded vertical with little room for any radials, but I have DXCC on 160M with this setup!

In the background you can see a pair of K9AY type switchable loop antennas for low-band receive.  As you can see I don't have any room to run radials for the 80/160 set-up.

Twenty years after I first got my Novice ticket in 1978 (age 17), I finally had a house where I could install a small tower and beams.  Before I moved to this QTH in 1997, I lived in a small condominium in Moorpark, CA.  I ran a TS-830S QRP and had fanned dipoles made from #22 gauge wire on the roof for 40 thru 10M.  The antennas were mounted to a vent pipe and fed with 125' of hidden RG-58C. I also had a 60 foot end fed wire that went through some trees.  I had to run low power most of the time to avoid RFI with the neighbors.  I work my DXCC CW/Mixed from that location with my General Class license.  I now have DXCC on 9 bands (including 160M) and I am on the DXCC Honor Roll.  I just need KP1 & FR/G to make #1 Honor Roll.

I do believe the time I spent DXing  from the Condo with my General ticket, wire antennas and low power, really helped my DXing skills.  You just couldn't power up the amp and yell, you had to learn to listen and try to understand the operator's pattern before calling.  At this point in time I have to say the biggest single thing I did that really helped my DX count, even more than the tower, antennas and amp, was getting my Extra Class ticket.  I never knew so much great DX was hiding in the Extra Class CW bands.  I still cant believe anyone thinks antennas are ugly.  They're Beautiful!  

QRZ DX de KR6C