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Who here is an Amateur Radio Operator

WB9YZU

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Madison, WI
I'm just curious as heck. From time to time, I run across someone who is also a ham.

So if you would share, please post up what year you were licensed, your current Station Call, and your license level (Tech, General...), whether you are active, and what bands you like to play on when you get the opportunity.

I'll start...

1977, WB9YZU, Extra, Not very active. 6,2,70cm

Ron
 
2007. W1KAS, Extra. Not very active ATM (do have a 2 meter in my wheeling rig.) Will be more active when I get the station set up at the house after rebuilding it... some HF, building a kilowatt amp from scratch, 6m FM, 2m FM, 6m/2m AM soon as I get a receiver (picked up a Hi-Bander VHF-62 for cheap), 70cm FM, possibly setting up a 10GHz station at some point too as I got a set of TWTA amps for free.
 
2008. KZ4DNA. Technician. Only use my HAM on wheeling runs and SAR missions.
 
Hope to get my general this Saturday..

73
Kent
KC2QWY
 
K7FLE, just over 10 years (time to renew!), General, not very active. 2m, 10m, 20m and 40m. I almost completed a 40m WAS back in '99-00 when I last had my station up (Kenwood TS-430s through homemade dipole via MFJ antenna tuner - I don't have any of it now. :( ) I've been toying with getting a 2m for the Comanche.

73's
 
Got my first ticket in 1994 I think, KK7FG, Extra, I'm on 2, 10, 40, and 80 when the "need" arises. Plan on installing 10 and 2 meter rigs in the Cherokee soon.
 
2007. W1KAS, Extra. Not very active ATM (do have a 2 meter in my wheeling rig.) Will be more active when I get the station set up at the house after rebuilding it... some HF, building a kilowatt amp from scratch, 6m FM, 2m FM, 6m/2m AM soon as I get a receiver (picked up a Hi-Bander VHF-62 for cheap), 70cm FM, possibly setting up a 10GHz station at some point too as I got a set of TWTA amps for free.

A VHF-62? That was old when I got into it ;) If you want to see a pretty rig, find a Utica 650 in good shape. They are chrome :D I wouldn't bother with 2/6mtr AM. SSB yes, AM no. Also, keep up on your CW if you planning on straying out of the FM modes. A lot of times you will hear a conversation start on voice, and due to deteriorating conditions, convert to CW, and if they improve, go back to voice.

The Amp sounds like a good project. I used to do a lot of building when I was younger. I really enjoyed it.

Watch out of the 10G stuff, I hear they will really mess up candy bars left in your lab coat ;)
 
Well? Did ya pass?

Yep. Both my myself and XYL are now generals :D.

My XYL (to my surprise) is now already wanting to go Extra:woohoo:

73
Kent
KC2WQY
 
A VHF-62? That was old when I got into it ;) If you want to see a pretty rig, find a Utica 650 in good shape. They are chrome :D I wouldn't bother with 2/6mtr AM. SSB yes, AM no. Also, keep up on your CW if you planning on straying out of the FM modes. A lot of times you will hear a conversation start on voice, and due to deteriorating conditions, convert to CW, and if they improve, go back to voice.

The Amp sounds like a good project. I used to do a lot of building when I was younger. I really enjoyed it.

Watch out of the 10G stuff, I hear they will really mess up candy bars left in your lab coat ;)
Yeah, I picked the VHF-62 up in kinda rough shape for 20 bucks at a flea market. Figured worst case, it had a couple tubes (including a 6146 final) in it that were worth that...

The amp - I'm going with a dual or possibly triple (just to keep the plate dissipation per tube down, not to improve output) 813 glassfet amp in grounded grid with an interesting cathode drive match circuit design I found on the net. Basing it mostly off this design: http://www.raibeam.com/zl1axb/813_amp.html

I figure the 10GHz station will double as a hot-pocket cooking machine while I'm operating :eyes:

I also have a couple of old Motorola Private Line base stations I'm hoping to restore eventually, one on 2 meter FM and the other on 6 meter FM. When I get some time I'm going to reverse engineer and characterize the output of the RX/TX LOs and design a simple DDS based set of LOs to replace them so I can tune without replacing TXCOs. That's a project for about 5 years from now, though.
 
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