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Hey, good evening, everyone. It's time for another
episode of HamTalk Live. It's episode number
144, the Be Loud contest station recorded live
on Thursday, December 13th, 2018. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined
by Steve Nardussi W9SN and Fred Dennon WW4LL
and we'll take your calls live in just a few
minutes. Last week Keith Baker KB1SF was here
to talk about AMSAT through the years. and if
you missed that show you can listen anytime.
All you have to do is go to HamTalkLive .com
or your favorite podcast app or YouTube and you
can play that. A reminder about the shirts that
are on sale right now, the HamTalk Live limited
edition shirt. May the grid square be yours.
If you ordered one of those, I should be caught
up with all of those. uh... so those should be
arriving uh... If you just ordered one in the
last few days But most of those have already
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size large is sold out But do you have a few
small medium XL and 2 XL still available so if
you want one of those just go to our link and
We've got that on Facebook and Twitter. It's
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away two of those tonight hopefully Tanner Jones,
W9TWJ donated one to give away. So thanks to
Tanner for doing that. And also the ICQ podcast
crew. So we'll try to give those away again tonight.
So get your questions ready to go and you call
in and we're just going to take the first callers
on the shirt. So all you have to do is call the
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you have it ready. It's 812. net ham one that's
eight one two six three eight four two six one
um and we're going to take the first two callers
tonight for the shirts so have that phone number
ready don't call it just yet because we're going
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get into the chat there and we'll watch that
as well. But I'll be back with Steve and Fred
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It's not the amount of power, it's the size of
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And our guests tonight are Steve Nardu, CW9SN,
an active contester participating mostly in CW
and Ready contests. He's helped and installed
three contest stations with antenna station design,
engineering, and software modeling. He's a former
CEO of a small wireless company. Prior to its
acquisition and now focuses on contest station
building and design, in 30 years he reached the
top of the honor roll at $349 for DXCC. He owns
and operates a winning contest station on a high
hilltop in northeast Tennessee. holding two US
records. Many top three finishes and continues
to push the limits with his four tower installation
and many antennas. And Fred Denon, WW4LL is an
active contester, primarily operating multi -op
in all modes. And he's the former president of
the Muncie Amateur Radio Club in Muncie, Indiana.
and the former president of the Porter County
Amateur Radio Club in Valparaiso, Indiana, the
two -time president of the Georgia Contest Group
and was just elected to serve as a third term
as the president. He's a former member of the
Society of Midwest Contesters and now operates
a single tower station just south of Atlanta,
Georgia He's a retired administrator from the
Federal Railroad Administration and for the last
10 years He's worked as an expert witness railroad
consultant and owner of a railroad construction
business So Steve and Fred welcome to ham talk
live and we've got a all Hoosier Cast tonight
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having us here, Neil.
Yeah, we've got, we've got all three of us from
Indiana originally. So I don't know what that
means, but we'll find out. I guess. Well, you
guys have been setting up a top class contest
station in Maine and was able to hear a little
bit about it down at Huntsville this year. So
walk us through the process of building this
station in Maine when you guys aren't in Maine.
Well, it's been a challenge to get everything
going. And we had to make a lot of decisions
on this project. Fred and I come together and
decided that we're both contesters. We're about
five hours apart. And so we wanted to build something
very unique, something that we liked. We both
are remoting into each other station as needed.
So it made sense for us to build a nice remote
station for both of us to use. And with all the
decisions, first was finding the land and that
became a challenge. And so we had one failure
on a land purchase up there. It turned out to
be some paperwork issues, but we boiled it down
to 25 different properties around the state of
Maine. And all of these properties had to meet
multiple criteria, including they had to have
a good internet connection. The land had to be
accessible. It had to be on grid, close to power.
We wanted a rural location also so we didn't
have a lot of noise. And it also had to meet
our software criteria. We run software modeling
on all the properties that we looked at. So we
wanted to make sure that what we were going to
do was going to be successful. So we gathered
the list and actually we went and visited all
these properties up there. So it took some time.
And we listened to the noise floor while we were
there. We actually used some AM radio and some
different things that we had where we could listen
to the noise floor there. And we eventually found
what we believe was the perfect site. It was
a six -month process. And it turned out to be
the closest ham radio station in the United States
to Europe, as you can get. We're all the way
in a very northeast corner of the state. In fact,
it's so far Northeast. It's, it's actually closer
to London, England from this location than it
is to Los Angeles. So Europe's a local call up
there. And I'm guessing a homeowner's association
is probably figured into that too. You didn't.
This was rural enough that we didn't have to
worry about that too much but we went ahead and
did all our legwork and we contacted the county
and made sure we told them everything we're doing
and they made us fill out some paperwork and
some diagrams of what we're going to do and they
actually proved everything and signed off on
it so we did this in confidence knowing that
you know nobody was going to say anything to
us later and it's far enough removed from town
that the local town that's up there so it was
fine. This property here met all the basic requirements
that we wanted the software modeling turned out
to be the best of all 25 that we did the the
takeoff angle there was incredible In fact, we
shared some of this information with our antenna
manufacturer Ken guard of W3 JK of JK antennas
and I sent him some of the modeling over he was
pretty impressed He said he's rarely ever seen
Property like this before so we were quite excited
about it So once we got all the paperwork done
and, you know, the purchasing of the property,
it basically got done in under four months. And
it was a fairly fast project for us, but we kind
of gathered everything and got it all together.
The first thing we had to do was clear the land.
We had to cut the driveway in. It took a couple
culvert pipes out there. There's a little bit
of water that had run through, so we wanted to
get that squared away. We had to put buildings
in, had to get utilities out there, so there
was a time frame that all had to come together.
After that was completed, we went back and during
that time we actually dug all the holes for the
towers and the concrete anchors and got that,
so that way it could be curing before I made
the next trip back. So, you know, a lot of plane
time and travel time. We hauled tower up there.
And it wasn't just a little tower. It was a really
big tower. So, the next part was basically just
erecting the towers and putting them together.
We selected JK antennas. We did real severe modeling
of Everything that we did so we use software
on everything and we work real close with Ken
guard w3jk and Really glad that we did so he
actually beefed up our antennas a little bit
more so than what? A normal buyer would probably
get just because of the icing and the wind load
conditions that we're going to have up there
and then it's a pretty extreme environment up
there, so after you know, months and a lot of
hours of this, we made our choice on what we
wanted to do. We wanted really large stacks on
the higher bands and we wanted some high gain
antennas on the lower bands too. So we didn't
really want to cut any corners. We wanted to
have something that we could all be proud of
and use and be successful with. And we also wanted
to do some things on non -contest bands. We wanted
to, you know, like to play around on six meters
in the work bands. And with those, we wanted,
you know, lots of elements. high elevation and
some high game. So at this point it became a
race of time because in Maine you don't have
a whole lot of warm weather. It gets cold pretty
quick and they have a lot much longer winter
than that than we do. So we really had to get
it in gear if we were going to get it up because
we wanted to be ready for this contest season.
So we hired a crane that was tall enough to reach
our top antenna, which is over 150 feet. So it
had to be a really tall crane on the tallest
tower that we put up. And in short order, the
crane actually got the towers put up pretty quick
and got all the top antennas. We got mass pipes
on both of those. We used the largest three inch
chromoly mass we could get. Multiple thrust bearings
on them and really big rotors up there. So It's
been it's been great so far. So we've been real
happy with it and they got all those all those
up for us and The towers were extremely heavy.
These are rone 65 and they're solid leg. So I
think they're around 5 ,000 pounds piece and
so they you know took them up we wanted all fill
a strand guy wires on them because we didn't
want any steel to interfere with our stacks and
our antennas because we put antennas down the
tower too. Then the next thing we had to do is
get buildings out there. So we had local contractors
that had framed up the inside of our buildings
and insulate them really well. We don't have
to worry about air conditioning up there. It's
the heat because it gets extremely cold up there.
So we installed security cameras, lights, heating
We put racks in there because all of our radios
and amplifiers all set in a full rack We use
flex radios We got bandpass filters that we mount
on the wall and a lot of small items but we can
all rack mount most of this stuff so it worked
out real well for us and the results was Well,
it was nothing short of spectacular. We were
really happy with the results all this time and
work and things that we had invested in this
thing, in the modeling and everything. It turned
out really good. We were quite pleased with it.
The things that we can hear up there are just
incredible. We can actually hear Europe coming
in. You know at noon 12 31 o 'clock. They're
they're rolling in some days a little better
than others sometimes at 1 30 We're here in Europe
at 10 and 15 over which is you know something
you just can't get from anywhere else I've heard
in the United States, so It was really cool You
know, but we're not done. We actually ran out
of time because Mother Nature Uh, dictated that,
so we're planning on going back up in the spring
and installing, um, some big stuff on one 60.
We're going to do a full size four square. We're
also going to do another one on 80 meters. And,
uh, we got an intent up now for 80 meters. Uh,
it's, it's just a single antenna, but boy, it's
a monster. We've got it way up high in the air
and it's, it's a lot of gain on it and it's switchable
in direction. So we're, we're quite happy with
it. But, uh, now when you. Set this up. Obviously
you're, you're looking at operating it remotely
most of the time. Did you go ahead and set up
a little bit of a shacks to where, you know,
if you decided, Hey, let's, uh, you know, let's,
let's go up to main for this contest and we'll
just run the contest from there. Well, absolutely
not. This contest season typically starts in
the colder months and come warm months, there's
not much contesting. In the warm months up there,
it's nice. It's 80, 85 degrees, but there's not
much contesting going on through the warm summer
months. Uh, it's, it's pretty treacherous. We
got cameras that I can actually log into and
look at it. In fact, right now there's over two
foot of snow on the ground right now. The locals
tell me that the, uh, the windshield will drop
down sometimes, um, you know, below 50, 50 below
zero up there. Uh, and that's not too uncommon.
So it's a, it's a pretty brutal environment and
I doubt I'm going to be able to drag anybody
1500 miles up there into that to, uh, to want
to contest. All right. Well, um, We've got a
few questions coming in and we want to save those
for the question and answer segment, but one
person here did mention, and this is Dick Bean
said, that's in a rare grid as well. It is. FN
67. We made friends with a couple of hams up
there. One was a border patrol agent. And one
was a local policeman there. And we're only about
1 .2 miles from the Canadian border. And we share
the same grid with them, FN67. And so they tell
us that they get besieged with email requests
to make skids so people can work that grid. Yeah,
so that just adds that much more To the station,
so that's that's pretty cool Well that we kind
of got on the the idea of doing the show from
a comment from dr. Scott right key zero MD that
Kind of talked about you guys had noticed some
differences in a build between a DX er and a
contest er so let's talk about those Differences
a little bit and how how does that affect these
builds? Yeah, he's right about that if we wanted
to build this Station as a DX or we would have
done things differently and and actually a much
more simplistic way But being contesters and
we want to contest that that you know increase
the cost the time and the complexity of the station
So the way we typically contest, Fred and I,
we like to run in multi. Now we also do some
single ops, but we like to run together as a
team. We've got a core group of guys that likes
to contest with us. So this required a second
tower and more antennas. And we want to be able
to do. guys on another band or even on the same
band so we had to separate our towers for interference
we had to put you know bandpass filters in so
we basically asked ourselves what would be the
perfect setup for multi contest teams so this
second tower was designed to have antennas fixed
in prime directions and assisted with the top
antenna that would rotate and pair up with them
for a stack. So we can actually, with just flipping
a switch on our computer screens in our house
wherever we are at, we can flip a stack in in
this direction, this direction, or whichever
one we want. We got four directions we can flip
it into, which makes it kind of nice. And so
we've got a... 10, 15, and 20 on that tower that
we can rotate around and flip into a stack. We
also have a four element 40 up there. So that
can assist in picking up malts and more contacts.
And that's a big help. On our main tower that
we have up there, it's a little bit taller tower,
40 meters is our workhorse on that band. So we
installed a four over four Yagi stack at 140
and 70 feet. And to where we've got The second
tower has a 40 meter jagging. It's up at about
120 feet and it can rotate. This way our run
station on the main tower can be focused on running.
He's got a lot of fixed antennas on Europe because
that's where most of the points come from. Where
the other tower can rotate and he's got stacks
fixed in other directions just by flipping a
switch and he can pick up those malts as he needs.
So if we were just going to DX We would not have
put the big bandpass filter stacks in, you know,
multiple radios and we got a lot of tower separation
between them. So that would have, you know, that
would have made a big difference on the installation.
You know, right now we've got actually a full
set of stacks on both towers for 10, 15 and 20.
So they both can run and they both have high
gain at the same time. And we can actually have
up to three operators operating simultaneously
So, you know, obviously drove the cost up and
design up and a little complexity, but we're
kind of proud of it and it works really well.
We've been kind of doing some burn in tests on
it and it works well. So the way it's set up,
if we want to DX, it's great. If we want to contest,
it's great. So it appeals to either way we want
to do it. There's times I just want to get on
just to call CQ and... work into Europe and it's
incredible. Um, we, we have a lot of fun with
it. All right. And one, one more thing here before
we, uh, take a break cause we are, uh, do for
a break here, but, um, obviously remote operation
is, is the main focus here. Um, so how do you
do that? And Who can access the station and is
it available for you know obviously you too can
but is it available for others. Well i've been
playing with remote operation for about ten years
but not seriously when flex radio come out with
their six thousand series that that kind of change
the game that made remote operation more mainstream.
So, and honestly, I don't even want to buy a
product today unless we can remote it. I mean,
a switch or any, a road or anything, we want
everything we have to be remote. So, and we also
hate Windows servers. At least I do. I want everything
all IP based. So, more and more hardware is starting
to surface and recently we've been experimenting
with some things with IP switching and things
like this. So, uh... you know this is made it
much more easy to to remote and you know and
ten years ago things were much differently than
what we have today and now we don't even have
to rely on a windows server or anything we can
just log in and go we don't have the issues that
there's no latency we put in high uh... high
-end routers up there so there's you know they're
rated fifteen million packets per second so they're
they're industrial uh... each station has its
own uh... internet We have two stations up there
basically that we got a tower one what we call
station one and the station two we have there
of their own electrical service they have their
own internet service and their own routers and
everything so they're separate but we can join
together. So everything is remoted from the amplifiers
to the rigs to the antenna switching to the stacks.
So rotors all that had to come into the design
and. We didn't want to skimp on that. So, you
know, Maine's a long way away, so we wanted to
make sure that we put in stuff that we knew was
going to work. And my previous career with my
internet that I had with the company, we had
different hardware platforms, and the decision
became easy. We installed rack -mounted cloud
routers on each tower. These things are incredible.
We've done burn -in tests. We just can't believe.
After four days, they're just sitting there cranking
away, just like a radio in your house. So without
having servers up there, it makes life a little
easier. Right now, we're just enjoying it. We
call CQ, we create piops in seconds on any band
that's open right now. It doesn't matter if it's
40 meters or 10 meters, if it actually becomes
open. We've been told we're one of the loudest
stations that they can hear. getting on 40 meters
at noon in the day and working into Europe and
breaking pileups. Actually, I worked the Echo
Papa 6 in Iran, broke over a European pileup
at 12, 30 in the afternoon, and I couldn't believe
it. So just using it makes a believer of you.
But the propagation from there is very different
from what it is from here. So that's one of the
big things that we got from the station up there.
And right now, as far as being able to use it,
we actually have a core group of guys that contest
with us. And so we actually have it, and we've
discussed rental and other guys being able to
use it. We've got a few guys that want to use
it that we've left on the station. So basically,
we're going to have some updates on our website.
They want to go to be loud us. We'll have some
updates on there And we've we've discussed the
rental of this so it's a it's something new and
we're still working through the you know the
logistics of this but It's everybody that we
put on the station from friends to strangers.
We put a couple friends of ours that you know
They just couldn't hardly believe how how easy
it was this software works really well The hardware
is working well and it's all very fast so there's
hardly any latency with it. That was important
to us. Alright, sounds like a great plan and
you guys will be able to finish that up. Of course,
I suspect like most projects it won't ever truly.
be finished but it'll be closer it'll be closer
so all right we're going to take a break and
when we come back we're going to open up the
phone lines and take some of these questions
from Twitter and take some calls live so again
the phone number 812 -638 -4261 so we'll take
a break we'll come back and then we'll open up
the phone lines and take calls with Steve and
Fred right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. I'm sorry to bother
you, but I'm having an antenna party and I ran
out of PL259s. Oh, come in. Thank you. Would
silver plated PL259s from Tower Electronics be
too good for your guests? Those will be fine.
Thank you. You saved my life the other night.
Oh, the PL -259s from Tower Electronics? Yes,
they were very successful at the antenna party.
My antenna works like a charm. Then, how can
you ever thank me? I'll try to think of something.
Don't be caught without PL -259s. Visit Tower
Electronics at a ham fest near you. Or visit
them online anytime at PL -259 .com or call 920
-435 -2973. They have adapters, cables, antennas,
soldering supplies, and meters too. Join the
conversation. Give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM
-1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk
Live. You're listening to Ham Talk Live with
Neil Rapp. Alright, we're back here at Ham Talk
Live and thanks to Tower Electronics for... helping
out with the show tonight. They're going to be
taking some time off. They'll be at Waukesha,
Wisconsin on January 5th, and then Fort Myers,
Florida, St. Charles, Illinois, Collinsville,
Illinois, and Arcadia, California in January.
So you can give them a call or visit them online
at PL -259 .com until they're back out on the
ham fest rounds and uh... ham talk live is on
the air every thursday night at nine p m eastern
time right here at ham talk live dot com and
be sure to check us out on facebook twitter and
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your calls if you have a question for Steve and
Fred we're opening the phone lines up right now
at 812 net ham 1 it's 812 -638 -4261 or you can
tweet ham talk live and also tonight you can
win a limited edition ham talk live grid square
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Christmas camaraderie between podcast. I see
you podcast is happy to sponsor one ham talk
live t shirt for tonight. First audio collar
to ham talk live and wish all the ham talk live
listeners a peaceful and calm Christmas holiday
season and also Tanner Jones W9 TWJ donated a
shirt to give away tonight along with the ICQ
crew So two lucky callers tonight will win one
and the phones are going nuts here. So we'll
we'll get some questions in here and I believe
We have a call on the line right now or Okay,
there we go Maybe we didn't get added. Okay now
now we have a call on the line and good evening
Good evening to you Yeah, who do we have here
Yes, you have Denny WB 9 MSM and Watertown, Wisconsin
a true Badger All right, very good. Well, we
went a little north of Indiana tonight. So what's
your question here for Steve and Fred? Yeah,
I actually have a couple of them there and my
one question that I have and I'm actually very
interested to know Has this ever been done before?
To the extent that they have done this I've been
listening and I'm just in awe of all that they've
been doing and it seems like such a complex project
that I'm just amazed at the complexity of it,
and I'm just wondering if it's been done before
to this extent, you know, that they've accomplished
this. Well, Danny, good evening. We know of at
least one other individual or group of individuals
that has done this successfully. And, you know,
when we first envisioned building this station
in Maine, We had no pre -design on renting it
out. It was simply going to be our DX and contest
station. However, we had several people that
contacted us about renting the station on a daily
basis or even for contests. We have the ability
to get people on the air now, but we've hired
a software engineer to further enhance that process.
Anyone interested in renting it out should go
to our below .us website and give either one
of us a call and we'll be happy to talk to them.
But yes, to answer your question, there is one
other successful company doing this already.
Very, very interesting. Hey, another question
real quick. What is the propagation like to the
West? I know to the East. Uh, you're just spectacular,
but I'm just kind of curious. Do you get into
the Pacific pretty well too? Actually, I've been
on a couple of times into the Pacific and it's,
it's really quite good. Um, it's, it's actually,
I've got a, uh, this is Steve W9SN. I've got
a, uh, a contest station in Tennessee on a, on
a pretty good hilltop and a good elevation. Um,
but even towards the Pacific, the, uh, the main
station we got, we'll beat it. When Japan opens
up, it's a nice opening. We can run Japan up
there very, very loud. Those signals up there
from there will be, you know, 15, 20 over 9 when
the band is open. It doesn't happen too often
lately, but we've caught it a couple times. And
some of the DX pileups out in the Pacific, there
was an Alpha 35 recently, and there was a couple
others. I can't remember the calls, but we were
able to break them on the first and second call.
It was fairly easy. Last but not least there,
guys, I'm just kind of curious, will we be seeing
anything in the QST or will you be doing a YouTube
at all that shows what the antenna structures
look like and the area there? I'm just kind of
curious. You think that's in the plans? We fully
plan to do that, Denny. We'll have a coming out
party, if you will, when we roll it out in its
entirety. right now until we get the total software
package done. We're kind of doing this in two
steps. So we'll have an abbreviated software
package where we could get people on. We can
get them on now, but it'll smooth the process
out here in the short term. And then we have
the development of the web client taking place.
And it'll make life much easier for everyone
to to log in at that point in time. Yeah, we'll
be doing full page spreads and QST. I just want
to compliment you guys on this. It sounds so
exciting. I just like I said, I'm in awe. So
I thank you very much for taking my call and
taking my questions. I appreciate that. And I
look forward to maybe sometime talking to you
guys on it. Very, very good. Thank you very much
for calling in, Danny. Yeah, 73. And again, good
luck with this project. It sounds really, really
exciting. Thank you. 73. All right. And Danny,
we'll send you that, uh, ham talk live t -shirt
from, uh, the ICQ crew. So congratulations on
that. And thanks for calling in. Yeah. Do you
know what size? Yeah, I'll, I'll get with y 'all
to email afterwards and we'll, we'll, uh, drop
you an email. All right. Sure. Thanks a million.
Okay. Take care, Neil. All right. Your next program
too. All right, thank you. 812 -638 -4261 is
the phone number and the phones are really lighting
up. We've got another call from a little ways
up north. So good evening, Paul. Well, good evening,
Neil. How are you? I'm good. And good evening
to you as well. Steve, I'm in Valparaiso, Indiana.
Yeah, hello. And I understand that you, being
the former president of the Porter County Amateur
Radio Club, I am the current president of the
Porter County Amateur Radio Club. Hey, Paul,
this is Fred, WW4LL. That was me that used to
live in Valpo. Oh, it was you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When were you president of the club? Well, I
was up there from 83 to 95. I had various seats
with the club there over the years, and I can't
tell you exactly which year it is, but I can
tell you we were still in the old tech building.
I don't know if you all are still meeting there
or not. Oh, well, depending on which old tech
building, most of them are gone now. But now
I've only been president this year, but I saw
that and I thought that was cool. This station
you're putting together, all of these big contest
stations are amazing. And just to see the technology
and what it takes to put all of those radios
and all of those antennas in one space and make
them work is always fascinating to hear. So this
is a cool story to be following. we're always
getting beat by the guys on the East Coast, and
they were good operators to boot. But, you know,
having been down to the Caribbean a number of
times to operate, the pileups were amazing down
there, and some of the rates were extremely high.
And then, you know, we didn't experience that
so much from the southeast here in the Midwest,
there in the black hole. But when we went out
the main, It was a new experience for us. It
was much like being in the Caribbean. So it's
just a different world up there. Very good. Well,
good luck with all this. And I hope everything
goes according to plan and be very interested
in working it. Well, thank you very much, Paul,
for calling in and say hello to the boys in Valpo
for me. Will do. Absolutely. We have a meeting
coming up in a couple of weeks. Paul around we
D9 GCO one of the voices you hear on amateur
radio news line. Thanks for calling Paul You're
welcome Neil. Have a good evening All right,
you two and the phones are still lighting up
like crazy and and we've got mark Brown in for
BCD on the line So good evening mark Good evening
Neil and for BCD Great program tonight. I tuned
in a little bit late. Good evening, Steve and
Fred Just a couple of questions. You may have
covered these, but I'm guessing from the description
of your towers and radios, I'm guessing you're
going to be multi -two or unlimited. Well, we
have our choice. We could run multi -single,
multi -two. Multi -multi would be a little difficult
for us right now, but uh... we're we're looking
at the possibility of being able to do that but
you know that takes a lot more operators and
it's a little out of our uh... comfort zone from
what we've been doing obviously uh... but we're
real comfortable with multi two and multi single
wow that's great and i i'm sure you guys will
work out the latency on the uh... the internet
there but uh... i i tuned in like i said a little
bit late but i can relate uh... you know to you
guys uh... uh... working europeans at midday
on forty meters uh... i operated a couple years
ago from k three l r and uh... it's just a real
treat uh... it's really incredible the propagation
difference uh... you see up there in the northeast
compared to buy home q g h in that in fayetteville
tennessee and fred's over georgia probably uh...
similar propagation there but uh... are you guys
planning i heard the uh... another caller ask
if you were planning to do a youtube or anything
My question is, are you planning to unveil this
with further detail at Xenia, either in a forum
or at Contest U? We've not spoken to Tim Duffy
about doing anything at Contest U. However, we
have been asked to speak in a couple of different
podcasts like this. We want to get all the components
smoothly operating before we do a total rollout.
There will be an unveiling of sorts when we're
up to speed with everything, Mark. Excellent,
excellent. Have you guys consulted with Craig
K9CT? I know he's running flexes in a contest
environment. Have you have you learned from him
on this on this project? We have talked to Craig
a number of times over several months and Craig's
a good friend and we we email periodically But
you know, we've talked to flex radio directly
and we've talked to To Craig about some of his
experiences as well and and he's a great guy
and he's very willing to To share so we appreciate
that very much Excellent. Excellent. Well, you
guys, uh, I'm, I'm drooling over the description
of your two towers and, uh, I just can't wait
to hear, uh, what, uh, what more this thing,
uh, this, this station can do it in a contest.
You guys, uh, have really put together something
special here. Have fun with it and good evening.
Uh, I'll turn it back to Neil and for BCD. Good
evening. Okay, Mark, thanks for calling in again
tonight and congratulations. We'll, we'll, we'll
send you a t -shirt too here. So. uh... graduations
on that thanks for giving us call again you know
i've got a we've got another call on the line
and i know we've got a couple more uh... trying
to get through so let's see who we have next
hello mike w nine r n y hello uh... good evening
mike what's your question there are other guys
here well i just thought i'd give a testimony
like i've done uh... a lot of multi -op with
Steve for over 13 years, and also with Fred.
And I ran that actual main station from a hotel
room in Carbondale, Illinois. I live in Jacksonville,
Illinois. But I ran that about a week ago on
just one DX -0400 to about from 0100 Zulu to
0400 Zulu. I made over 50 contacts in Europe
on 40 meters when the band was not open great,
and two into Israel sites. And I've ran also
the contest a couple of times with them. So it's
a, it's a, an awesome stage. Very good. Hey Mike.
Hey Fred. All right. Well, thanks for calling
in about that. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I
said Fred, I didn't tell you. I put Mike on there
the other night. That's one way to find out,
right? Oh, yeah, it was fun and look forward
to too much more, but I just want to get a testimony.
It's a, it's a fantastic station. These guys
are awesome and they work tirelessly tirelessly
to get, uh, to get everything going. It just
works great. And, uh, I'll just leave with one
comment and that's, uh, want some candy. You
want some candy, Mike? I do want some candy.
I'll get out and talk to you guys later. Thanks
a lot for putting me in. See you, buddy. Take
care. Thanks for calling. All right, we've got
another call in line. It's Carl, KD9HQT. Good
evening, Carl. Hey, Neil and Air 1. I just have
a question slash comment. But, um, hopefully
you can hear me because I'm actually driving
on I -69, so I'm actually in Norfolk, Washington,
driving home from Heaventown. Um, about the contest
station, okay, about that, um, when my dad moved
to the house where my parents lived in 1905,
my dad's, um, ham shack, where it is located
now, was once a garage. And when they got rid
of the garage door and my father converted the
garage into a workshop, he also converted the
portion of the garage into a ham shack. So basically
he, I think sometime in the 90s, he put in some
installations around the... from the ham shack
so it can get some pork inside the shack. And
before he actually moved in, moved into the house
after he got married to my mother, and if you
guys want to know, my father called his WP -19WF,
that is Wimkey Bravo 9, that is Wimkey Foxtrot.
My father used to live in Baltimore, Illinois.
which is where my my grandmother's house is and
And my dad has a 70 foot tower and and currently
right now he has three VHF and he has one He
has three antennas he has a two meter single
size band antenna, a centimeter single size antenna.
And this is a rare type of antenna that most
amateur operators don't operate on. He also has
a 23 centimeter antenna. So that's why I like
my comment. But the question is, if you want
to operate on CHF or UHF on testing and the antennas
were like made as ascendees and the tower itself
was made as ascendees and would you consider
to consider consider a station that has like
five or six transceivers compared to one five
transceivers and one big tower compared to a
station that has like two transceivers and just
a simple dive pole Well, I think maybe getting
into a little bit of what we were going to talk
about with Fred with maybe a more modest Setup
maybe that that's kind of ties into that maybe
yeah, maybe so If you're asking about, you know,
what do we suggest for someone trying to build
a more modest contest station and looking at
some of the important pieces to include in the
station, you know, I would say that you focus
on your selection of the antennas for the type
of contest that you want to compete in. And I
think, personally, I think it's the single most
important consideration. For example, If you
can't install a tower and you can only put up
wire antennas, for example, then optimize those
for the mode that you prefer. You know, the contest
that you think you can effectively compete in
and you orient those antennas to, you know, maximize
your coverage performance. If you can only install
a short tower, like under 100 feet, then you
may want to use multi -band antennas. You may...
If you want to run multi -up with those multi
-band antennas, then you're going to need to
consider buying a triplexer. You may also want
to just specialize in contesting on one band
and put up a huge rotating 40 -meter beam, for
example, if you think that that's the area that
you can be most competitive. The rig and the
antennas are personal preferences of the station
owner. But for us, we chose and we like flex
radio and we like JK antennas. Those work quite
well for us, but to each their own. Knowing the
capabilities and the functionality of your rig
may be the second most important piece to this.
There's a lot of people out there that own radios
that are capable of diverse functionality. However,
some of the owners simply don't fully familiarize
themselves with the full breadth of what the
radio will do, what capabilities the radio has
right in front of them. So those are some of
the considerations. Yeah, one time my, right,
especially the antennas that my dad showed was
because the antennas are horizontal and not vertical
because of polarization on VHS. There was one
time my father contacted a, and this was extremely,
extremely rare, and this probably only happened
once in a lifetime. My father actually contacted
a station in Mexico on two meters, but there
was a huge troppo van opening. And after he contacted
that Mexico station, a bunch load of US stations
contacted my father. Because his antennas were
up like 50 feet in the air, and there was a power
up, so he only, during the power up, he actually
picked up a Florida station, and he said to me
that this was the longest TX on two meters by
band. Oh, awesome. Good for him. I don't know
what else to say about that. Carl thanks for
calling in tonight, and we're gonna try to get
a couple more in here We're already overtime,
so we're gonna. We're gonna move along All right,
73 all right 73. Thanks for calling Carl appreciate
it Okay, we've got a couple of tweets here to
address and I think there was one more person
trying to call in Tucker w4 FS wants to know
how Be loud is able to compete with remote ham
radio comm for contest Considering their own
main station is a little closer 100 miles closer
to Europe and the coast so we compared to any
other stations We might get into some rivalry
here, I don't know Oh, I mean, I haven't met
Ray personally. Steve has met him and had dinner
with him, and they've got it going on. Like I
said, we started this out for our personal use
in the beginning, and it's morphed into renting
it out. But Ray does quite well from Lubeck up
there. we uh... we don't do it we haven't done
uh... side -by -side comparisons uh... from that
from that neck of the woods he's he does really
well and we're going to do really well and so
beyond that you know when it comes contest time
like any other competition it's going to depend
on uh... you know keeping your butt in the chair
and uh... uh... an operator skills things of
that nature and so uh... You know, we wish them
well and hopefully they feel the same way about
us. All right. We are going to take one last
call here. We're, we're running way over time
here, but, uh, had another one that was trying
to call quite a bit. So let's, uh, let's see
who we have on the line here. Hello. Yes. Hello.
Hi. How are you this evening? Good. Who, who
do we have here? Uh, Neil, this is kilo one.
Lima kilo papa. It's Carmen. Carmen. Oh, it's
good to hear from you, Carmen. Oh, Neil, I just
want to say to Fred and to Steve, congratulations
on their endeavor. And God bless them and keep
safe on those towers. And I want to wish everybody
a merry, merry Christmas. Steve, Fred, congratulations.
Hey, thanks, Carmen. And I haven't worked you
on 40 here in the last few weeks. But I always
enjoy working you. You're a great CW out, my
friend. OK. Well, thank you very much. And Neil,
those two fellows are two top -notch CW rascals.
That's for sure. God bless to all. And thank
you. All right, thank you carbon appreciate your
kind words Take care now All right. Well, we're
gonna we're gonna finish things up here and there's
one other tweet I want to mention here before
we go because Bryant rascals mother Lauren just
posted a picture of Bryant on be loud US And
so I know he had a chance to to do some operating
and saw that picture. In fact, I think it was
a week or two ago I saw that. So talk a little
bit about our friend Bryant here. Bryant is a
bright young man who is being raised by a family
that I adore. They are really good people and
they're doing everything right in raising young
Bryant. who is a fine, upstanding young man.
He's a great contester. He will be a better contester
one day. He sets down at my station a number
of times, and he'll set down and he'll run 40
words a minute on CW and won't even flinch. So
they're good people, and Merry Christmas. Uh,
to the rascal family and, uh, Brian, we look
forward to, uh, having you seated with us and
many more contests to come 73. All right. Very
good. Yeah. He's, uh, he is a good one. So, uh,
as we finish up here, we, we had some other things
kind of planned and fortunately we had calls,
so we didn't get to all of those, but, uh, quickly,
I know you guys want to mention that. This isn't
the only build you're working on. You're working
on some other stations and reviving a station.
So let's just take a minute or two here to talk
about some of the other projects going on. We're
currently down in Lafayette, Louisiana. Dr. Pat
Sonier, who's a silent key, W5WMU. Anybody in
contesting knows that call. We're rebuilding
that station right now. Steve's there currently.
And I'll be leaving tomorrow morning and headed
down there. And so we're going to put that back
on as a memorial station to our friend Pat. You
know, we've got five other stations, one of which
is Pat's, that, you know, we're going to put
back on the air remotely. You know, Steve's station
is going to be a remote mine here in Georgia.
Pat's, PJ4Golf, they're on the island of Bonaire.
has agreed to come on board with us as has Hotel
Charlie 5DX, and then of course our new main
station. And then we've got a couple other stations
in Maine that's going to come on board with us
here after the first of the year. So we hope
to have two to three main stations kick in here
in 2019. Once those are all completed, we've
got two more stations going on the air remotely.
From Maine, as I mentioned, and then we've got
one in Kentucky and another one in Arizona. So
we're not, we're not letting any dust settle
here. We're moving out. Sounds like an ambitious
plan and look forward to hearing how all of that
goes. I think we've caught up with all the questions
here tonight, so I'm gonna let you guys get out
of here. We're, like I said, a little long tonight,
but it's been great to have all the calls. Appreciate
all the calls coming in and all the questions
and some really good discussion from you guys
tonight some good ideas and and maybe we can
do another one on on maybe the more modest setups
for the rest of us that can't join in on the
on the big guns we can get the the more modest
ones going and talk a little bit about those.
So thanks for coming on Fred and Steve and appreciate
it. And seven threes to you. Thank you very much,
Neil. Seven three. We appreciate it. Thanks.
Thanks. And seven threes, Neil and Merry Christmas,
everybody. Alright Anna, Merry Christmas to you
both and everybody out there that's listening
tonight. That is a wrap for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live thanks to Steve Narducci W9SN
and Fred Dennon WW4LL and everyone out there
in cyberspace for listening and calling in and
we invite you back next Thursday night at 9 p
.m. Eastern Time when Josh Ward W3ARD will be
here to talk about high altitude ballooning.
And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
be sure to visit HamTalk Live. And congratulations
to our t -shirt winners. We'll be in touch by
email and get those out to you. And thanks to
Tanner, W9TWJ and the ICQ podcast group for donating
those to us tonight and appreciate the opportunity
to give those away. So this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG
saying seven three, seven five, and may the good
DX be yours. Thanks for watching!