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or go to hamstation .com. time for ham talk live
episode number 67 CQDX hall of fame inductee
Jerry Rosilius WB9Z recorded live on Thursday,
June 1st, 2017. I'm your host, Neil Rapp WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham talk
live tonight. We are joined by Jerry WB9Z and
We'll take your calls live in just a few minutes.
If the audio sounds a little different tonight,
don't have all the usual processing and everything.
I'm actually on a spur of the moment setup on
Julie's kitchen table with the laptop and a microphone.
We had an unexpected trip over to Cincinnati
today. Julie's cat had to be put down from cancer
and some intestinal blockage and So I wasn't
expecting to not be home but threw everything
in and I think we've got everything working and
the internet seems to be holding up so My apologies
if we have some technical problems tonight If
that does happen, we'll get things rescheduled
with Jerry, but so far everything's working great
So we'll, uh, we'll keep on rolling here as long
as it does. Well, last week on the show, Tom
Vinson, NY zero V was here to talk about the
search for Amelia Earhart and the ties to ham
radio in that search. So if you missed that show,
just go over to ham talk live .com or, um, one
of the podcasting services, Apple podcasts, stitcher,
Google play, tune in SoundCloud. And we're also
over on YouTube. You can check out. That show
on demand and a couple of notes before we get
started first of all our friend Christian k0
sth Over at 100 watts and a wire is sponsoring
another operating event. That's the ones called
tune up It's a chance for you to test out some
things before field day So a tune up runs June
10th and 11th on the HF bands and there are no
rules. It's not a contest. It's just a chance
to get out there and try out some of that gear
before field day. So if you have a 100 watts
to wire ID number you can exchange that if you
don't. You can go to 100WattsandWire .com and
sign up for one and do that or just go without.
It would be fine too. So good luck to Christian
on that event. And speaking of field day, Sean
Kutsko, KX9X will be here again this year, just
like last year with Thursday before field day
to take your last minute questions. So if you
have any questions that you want answered about
field day, Sean will be here. And again, that's
the Thursday right before field day, June 22.
So be sure to tune in for that and call in with
your questions and maybe even a field day story
or two here on the show. Ham Nation, I was going
to mention the 300th episode special event, but
that actually ended at midnight. But if you participated
in that and you need the rules go over to qrz
.com and look up Whiskey Zero Hotel w0h over
at qrz .com and it'll tell you all the information
about how to get your certificates and all that
kind of thing so Congratulations to them on their
300th show and the special event station or a
special event actually running several stations
so congratulations to them. Well let's get on
our way here get your questions ready to go for
Jerry. We're going to talk to Jerry a little
bit and find out a little bit about this award
and some of the stuff he's done and then you'll
have a chance to call in and chat with us. The
telephone number is 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's
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You can use Skype to get us. The username is
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and all of those to get through to us tonight.
And I'll be back with Jerry right after this
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to sponsor this episode of HamTalk Live. Two
antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got
married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception
was excellent. You're listening to HamTalk Live
with Neil Rapp. Hey, thanks to Scott and Jill
at Tower Electronics for sponsoring the show
to help bring you ham talk live. Coming up this
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heard it right here on HamTalk Live. HamTalk
Live is on the air every Thursday night 9 p .m.
Eastern Time right here at HamTalkLive .com and
if you miss the show you can listen to the archive
on the website or download it from most popular
podcasting sites. Jerry WB9Z is a well -known
contester, DXer, and a member of many of the
top 10 DXpedition teams. He's worked 315 countries
on 160 meters from his home in central Illinois.
Jerry has all countries confirmed across the
other bands with 357 overall, including five
band. Worked all zones on 80 through 10. Number
five in the USA with all 40 zones on 160 Jerry
has over 3080 banned countries confirmed with
well over 300 countries confirmed on each of
the nine bands 160 through 10 with 122 on six
meters He works all bands between 160 and 70
centimeters and has a pretty massive antenna
farm with 10 towers Jerry's licensed Was earned
back in 1971 at the age of 16 and His first call
sign W in 9 HAD and then when they made the change
to Off of the end calls. It was WB 9 HAD And
then WB9Z since 1988. He's made the top 10 or
better in the U .S. on the CQ and ARRLDX contest,
WPX, 160 meter and 10 meter contest, the IARU
HF World Championship, and the VHF Plus contest,
and has won the Central Division several times
in the sideband sweepstakes. He's a member of
the Society of Midwest Contestors, as well as
many other organizations. And Jerry says he enjoys
taking equipment coax and antennas overseas where
he operates, then leaves it with some of the
local radio operators to use. And just two weeks
ago at Dayton, he was inducted into the CQDX
Hall of Fame. So Jerry, thanks for joining us
on HamTalk Live tonight. Yeah, hi Neil. Thanks
for having me and it's my pleasure and honor
to be here this evening Well at hand -vention
this year and and I have to admit I got word
a little early that that was gonna happen actually
after I talked to you, but you were surprised
to learn there at the the DX banquet that you
were inducted into the CQ DX hall of fame. So,
so tell us how you found out about it and how
the ceremony went. Well, uh, I had kind of like
heard a rumor, uh, you know, before, but I really
didn't find out till the, uh, the ceremony or
their DX dinner. So, you know, I was pretty shocked
because there are so many deserving, uh, of this
very prestigious award, you know, the DX Hall
of Fame. They only give two of those out every
year and there's only like 70 members on the
DX Hall of Fame. So I was quite shocked. But,
uh, everything went really well. I got up there
and kind of stumbled through a few things and,
uh, and my, my, my, my talk was pretty short
and everybody was glad of that. So, uh, they
didn't have to, uh, you know, hear me go on and
on about a bunch of stuff. Okay. Now if you watch
the big bang theory by chance, Jerry, I didn't
ask you about this. Occasionally occasionally.
Okay. Well there was this one episode where,
or the guy gets up to accept the award Sheldon
and, and, and start singing the periodic table
song in front of everybody. So you didn't get
up there and sing in front of everybody. Did
you? No, I know better than that. That would,
that would empty the place really quickly. Oh
my. Well, yeah. You know, that may not have been
the greatest thing. We'll leave the singing to
Ward. I know you've got some people that you
want to thank. You mentioned that as we were
getting ready for the show. So if you'd like
to thank some of those people who supported you
for this, why go ahead and talk a little bit
about that. Well, thanks Neil. I want to first
of all, I want to thank Dr. Ralph Fedor Casereau
Italy radio He introduced me at the dinner and
he said a really lot of good things and about
me and I was I was you know, very very Taken
by all of that. I want to thank CQ magazine and
N 2 o o Bob and then of course, I want to thank
Scott Right or our friend K's role Mike Delta
I believe he was you know organized a campaign
to get me inducted so I want to Thanks, Scott
a lot and then and then my good friend Glenn
W zero GJ and Bob K for you EE who I've traveled
with these guys You know on many expeditions
or they're super guys. They also wrote some letters,
you know in my supporting me. And then I also
believe there are some clubs that wrote in letters
like the Rochester DX and Contest Club, the Missouri
DX and Contest Club, the Twin City DX Association.
The Southeast DX club the Metro DX club that's
in in Chicago and I belong to that and I also
belong to the Greater Milwaukee DX Association
and they also Helped out with a letter. So I
just wanted to kind of include that in there
early Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of nominations
there and a lot of support And that chief instigator
of that KZeroMD, you got to watch out for that
guy. I think he might be able to sell refrigerators
to Eskimos. I'm not sure. But he can really promote
ham radio. And that is one of the things he's
good at. And so I'm glad he was. He was in support
of you because you've done an awful lot of great
things on the DX front and one of those things
is The expeditions and and your Contributions
to the X and you've got every DX CC entity except
North Korea on CW. Is that right? Yeah, that's
that's right. I I've worked North Korea back
in I believe it was 2001 on sideband. I actually
worked him twice, once on 10 meters and once
on 15. But the North Koreans did not let him
operate CW. So there's only a few stations in
the world that have North Korea on CW. And I
think just about everybody in the United States
needs it on CW. So I'm one of them. Yeah. Well
now that you've talked to all these places, you,
you go to these places and operate from them.
So, um, you've been on several of the top 10
ones. Uh, why don't we run down that list of,
of the de -expeditions that you've been able
to go on. Yeah, I've been on seven expeditions
that were, um, voted de -expedition of the year.
So the first one. I'm not going to mention the
the ones in the Caribbean because those were
like contest expeditions and but the first one
back in I believe it was 1999 was on Christmas
Island in the Indian Ocean and also Cocos Keeling
in the Indian Ocean those were VK9XX and VK9YY
and then also in 2001 I operated from Spratly
in the South China Sea and that was nine Mike
zero Mike and Then I kind of took a break from
traveling and made a whole bunch of trips down
to PJ 2t Papa Japan to tango down on cura cell
and did a lot of operating from down there Contesting
and doing tower and antenna work and stuff. I
believe I believe I made 16 trips down there
and then got back into de -expeditioning in 2009,
and I talked to K4UEE. Bob into letting me go
along to Desaceo, and Desaceo was in the top
10, that was K5D, and then Dr. Ralph Fedor, K0IR,
invited me to go to South Orkney, and that's
in the Antarctic region down there, VP80RK. And
then after that, it was Malpelo, which was off
of Columbia. That's that thousand foot rock that
sticks out of the Pacific Ocean. That's really
a rugged place. And it's super hot too. After
that, it was Swain's Island in the Pacific. And
that place was super hot, super humid. And I
saw insects there that I didn't even know existed.
And I was really glad after two weeks on that
island to leave. And then after that, it was
Wake Island. And I think a lot of us remember
Wake Island, where the historic World War II
Batagron was. We operated from there as K9W.
And after that, in early 2014, was Amsterdam
Island. And I was gone from home for seven weeks
on that trip. That was nine days at sea from
Western Australia. and of course nine days back
from the island and that was that was a rough
ride and after that it was nevassa down in the
uh in the caribbean i was very fortunate to be
on the first helicopter flight in and the last
helicopter uh flight off of nevassa and at the
time nevassa was uh Number one or number two
on the most wanted list depending on what part
of the world you were You were filling out the
most wanted list So it was it was right up there
either number one or number two and then the
the last one is Was Paul Myra and that was in
the Pacific also. So there's there's quite a
list there and I got one coming up soon, but
I think we'll mention that maybe a little bit
down the road there Yeah, well, we'll, we'll
switch that up. Go ahead and talk about, uh,
the one that you're, uh, you're working on right
now. Well, the, the one coming up is a Buve and,
uh, I think a lot of people, uh, need Buve. Um,
it's number two on the most wanted list and Buve
is going to happen in early 2018. And, uh, that's
down in the, um, Antarctic region. It's about
a thousand miles north of Antarctica, but it's
a really desolate rock. It's been many, many
years since it's been on the air. We're taking
a big team down there, 20 operators and a pretty
large ship, two helicopters. It's probably going
to be one of the most expensive the expeditions
of all time. Our budget is seven hundred and
fifty thousand dollars So yeah, wow So some of
the expeditions I've been on the path in the
past were like three and four hundred thousand
and that was you know, obviously a lot but this
one this one is very expensive because you know,
we got we got a lot of danger involved and We
want to make sure nobody gets hurt. So that's
why we're taking two helicopters and a large
boat and it just It's a safety factor thing and
I've been in a tower and antenna business for
over 40 years I'm all about safety and everybody
else is too and you know, we want to be able
to To get everybody on and off the island safely
and you know, we got a we got a pretty large
ship that's going to be chartered to to get us
down there stay with us and get us back so if
anybody's interested our website is bouvet that's
b -o -u -v -e -t -d -x all one word dot o -r
-g and if anybody's interested in helping us
out with a donation you can do that right on
the website very good and we had ralph on talking
about that trip on an earlier episode to you
so if you want to know more about to the uh...
bouvet trip you can uh... check out that episode
uh... with ralph uh... right here on ham talk
live uh... and we're hoping to uh... to do some
updates from uh... from that trip once we get
there will will talk more about that when we
get uh... closer uh... the time but uh... we're
hoping to so to kind of get uh... get a few updates
on how that is going and of course they can use
the donations so make sure you visit the site
and help them out if you can to do that. Now
one of the things that I saw on the Bouvet the
expedition Twitter account here just a few days
ago. I think I think it was Ralph on there was
was talking about the choice of helicopter that
I guess a one engine helicopter is not the safest
option. And so he was talking about having a
two engine helicopter for the safety thing you
were talking about. Yeah, yeah, I believe the
original helicopter was just a single engine
Chopper and you know, can you imagine being stuck
on bouvet? The helicopter broke and can't take
off and you got a team of 20 on the island ready
to be extracted and and It's, uh, this is a lot,
uh, this is a lot, uh, more safe. Uh, I, I feel,
I feel a hundred percent better about the whole
thing now that we have two helicopters and actually
four engines. Yeah, that's the way to go. Uh,
always, always good to have a backup. And, um,
that's, that's, uh, kind of scary. Now I remember
a similar to the expedition, uh, from, um, One
that that's kind of close to my heart because
one Gary Stouter canine SG was the uncle of one
of my students at school and we were able to
talk to him while he was down there and also
the video that kind of inspired Padraig Lissandra
the young ham of the year and a bazillion other
awards that was kind of what got him started
on on that path was that they had to leave some
people behind on the island with that chopper.
They couldn't get the chopper from the island
back to the boat enough times and had to leave
some people behind. That's pretty scary when
you're out there in the middle of nowhere. Yeah,
I believe three, maybe four guys had to spend
an extra night on the island. The weather turned
bad and the helicopter couldn't fly safely. It
was getting late in the day kind of thing. So
I believe they were stuck on the island for an
extra day. And I know Gary very well. As a matter
of fact, I've done some contests with him down
at PJ2T. And I've operated with Gary from Desacheo,
Malpelo, and maybe somewhere else. But Gary's
a good friend of mine also. K9 Sierra Golf. Yeah,
and we always tease him about his ham -vincing
parking story, but we'll save that for another
time. So one last thing here before we take a
break, and then we do have some tweets that have
already come in, and so we'll get to those and
the phone calls. But before I go, what's your
strategy to get that North Korea checked off?
Um, I have no strategy, just live long enough
to do it. It may take a long time. It may never,
it may never happen. I'm glad I'm, I'm glad I
have it for the mixed, uh, DXCC award and the,
and the side ban or phone DXCC award because,
um, you know, CW it looks like is going to be
a long, long time if ever. Now, I mean, I'm just
trying to imagine the pileups. I mean, we just
had, you know, I know Val mentioned that you
had said that the pileups for this Hamnation
300 thing were probably as big as some of the
pileups you've had on some of these de -expeditions.
Can you imagine the pileup when North Korea goes
on the air? It's it's gonna be it's gonna be
a wild time. There's no question about it And
you know, that's why we like to take a big team
to kind of you know Spread out the activity on
multiple bands of multiple modes So, you know
like one guy going there or two guys going there.
It's it would be really really really a zoo or
a mess Yeah Can't even imagine that, but maybe
one of these days we'll, we'll get to find out.
Well, it's a time to pay a couple of bills here,
but we'll be back and we'll take your calls,
uh, with Jerry WB nine said right after this
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time for your calls if you have a question for
jerry give us call eight one two net ham one
is the phone number eight one two six three eight
four two six one Or you can Skype us. Just look
for HamTalk Live on Skype. You'll see the little
HamTalk Live logo there. And you can also tweet
us at HamTalk Live. And we've got a couple of
those. And the first one is from Troy Simpson.
W9KVR says, Hi, Jerry and Neil. Just finished
a track cookout and tuned in. Big thanks to Jerry
for helping us out at the school, which Troy
also teaches at a school and does ham radio.
in Watsika, Illinois, is where he is, and helping
get the de -expeditions in the log. K5D was their
first and quite memorable, so that's from Troy.
Oh yeah, I remember that contact. I think I was
operating, I forget what band it was, but yeah,
it was a memorable contact. And we also have
a tweet here from our friend, Dr. Scott Wright,
KZeroMD, who says, first, congratulations on
being recognized for this outstanding honor.
And the letter from Dr. Ralph Fedor really summarized
how your character and integrity qualified you
uniquely for this honor. And he wants you to
share with us what got you interested in DXpeditions
and DXing. and then I've got a follow -up, but
let's take that one first. Well, that's a good
question Scott what got me interested probably
has to go way back to the you know, the early
70s and finding these old QST s and Going to
the house DX, you know articles and looking at
the pictures of these, you know exotic locations
around the world and these guys got towers and
antennas or Verticals, you know set up on the
beach and you know, that was that was it man
that that was even before I had a novice license,
I was intrigued intrigued by the expeditioning.
And then like, probably after that, reading Don
Miller's book, and then following Don Miller
when he was writing for for CQ at the time and
writing about all of his travels and the expeditions
and stuff. I think that was where You know, I
really got started and thinking at least thinking
about traveling around and DXing and also after
that contesting and working DX contest and you
know a lot of these exotic places on during the
DX contest and these guys having big pile ups
where I didn't have a big pile up at home and
you know that's kind of that was kind of my early
days thinking about DXpeditioning. All right,
and then the other question here is what lessons
would you share with new DXers about being successful
working you on the D expeditions? That's a good
good question to you know with the new technology
if you got a an SDR radio or any any radio with
a Band scope uh... if you're looking at the pile
up you look look for holes where there's nobody
calling or go to the top of a of the pile up
uh... that sometimes you know when when we're
tuning around and trying to get a call lots of
times myself and others will maybe go to the
top of the pileup. The top of the pileup isn't
quite as, you know, intense. And you might be
able to pull somebody's call or partial call
out from the top of a pileup. And I've always
had, you know, good luck with that. And it always
helps to be loud. So, you know, whatever you
can, you know, get it, get a big amplifier and
get big antennas. Yeah. Bigger guns always seem
to help get through the pile up. So, uh, that's
some, uh, some good information there. 812 net
ham one is the phone number. 812 -638 -4261.
Or you can tweet us, uh, like these guys did
at, uh, ham talk live. Um, or if you're on the
website, actually you can, uh, even enter something
on chat. That's what Troy did. So give us a call
or a tweet here at 812 net ham one For your questions
with Jerry WB 9 Zed recently inducted into the
CQDX Hall of Fame While we're waiting on the
calls here. Let's talk a little bit about your
your station. You've got a pretty impressive
antenna farm there and So tell us a little bit
about your contest station and then what is the
strategy to getting Val off the radio long enough
to actually use it? Let me answer the last question
first. We hardly ever fight over a radio because
we got sometimes three rigs set up here and multiple
amplifiers and bandpass filters and antenna switching.
We normally can't share an antenna, but we can,
you know, share all the receiving antennas, which
is nice. So, uh, you know, we, we, we normally
don't have any issues, uh, um, you know, DXing,
um, and fighting over, fighting over the radio,
at least at least it hasn't happened recently
that I remember Jerry, I want to tell you, that
was a very, very smart answer. Okay, that's for
good. Okay, multiple radios and multiple amps
with bandpass filters. Do you want me to mention
it? So yeah, just a little bit about your station,
what you have. Well, the antenna farm, you know,
I've been out here since, this is my grandparents'
farm. So I've been out here since like 1983.
And so I just didn't build this overnight. All
the towers here. are were used and you know I
took them down and moved them put them up and
stuff all the coax out here and I got some big
coax to you know everything from half inch to
inch and five eight celiacs I didn't buy any
of that I I removed it from cell sites and stuff
because that's kind of my one of my businesses
And so I got, you know, big, big coax all over
the place, but I've gone through several generations
of antennas over the years because I started
out with, you know, commercial antennas and they
would only last so long because we seem to be
in an ice. icing area here. We have plenty of
ice. We're only, you know, 80 miles south of
Lake Michigan and stuff. And when you get a low
pressure system in sometimes in the wintertime
and you get a lot of rain, it seems we get plenty
of ice down here. So I'm on my third or fourth
generation of Yagis. All the Yagis, or most of
the Yagis now at least, are all custom built.
They're very heavy. So, I'll start out with 80
and 160. We got 160 foot vertical on 160 and
also works on 80 meters. On 40, there's a four
element full sized Yagi at 140 feet and we also
have several wires on 40. On 20 meters, we can
choose from five different 20 meter mono -banders.
And on 15 we have six over six on 15, 10 meters.
There's a seven -element mono -band yaggy. I
have multiple big tri -banders. that can be used
for, you know, in different directions during
a contest. You just switch to it. You don't have
to rotate, you know, the big array around. Also
got the Yagis on 12, 17, and 30 meters. On six
meters, we have a 10 element. a nine element
and a six element yagi on six meters so we got
three yagis which is nice during a VHF contest
which we're actually getting ready for you know
which is the weekend after this coming and then
went on two meters 222 and 432 we got some pretty
good size yagis way up in the high in the air
also so and there's a lot of maintenance involved
with this but it's all worth it. And what rigs
are you using? We got a little bit of everything.
We got an ICOM 7851, a Flex 6700 with Maestro
and a K3S that came back from Paul Myra and we
use that also. So got a little bit of everything
here. Very good. 812 Nat Ham 1 is the phone number
812 -638 -4261 or give us a tweet at HamTalk
Live or you can comment in the chat as well.
We've got just a couple of minutes left so we've
got time for one more if you want to chime in
here with Jerry WB9Z. So one question that I
usually ask all the Dexponitioners that come
on the show uh... you know it seems like these
locations because they're so rare it's usually
because it someplace really really hot or really
really cold so which one would you pick uh...
i thought about that uh... and uh... i think
it's a toss -up because uh... the cold locations
usually involve a long boat ride to get there.
And those long boat rides involve, you know,
some seasickness. So, and then the really hot
locations. And I've been in a couple of places
where we measured temperatures approaching 120
degrees. And I believe on Malpela, we might even
have measured 126 degrees, but I'm not 100 %
sure that. I know it was at least 120. And on
Swains Island, it was 116 or so. And after 11
o 'clock in the morning, you really didn't want
to even go out in the sun. You just kind of.
hung out underneath the trees, tried to stay
in the shade, but it rained every afternoon,
so the humidity was high, and then at night,
the insects would just pretty much eat you alive.
So it's kind of a toss -up, but this bouvet expedition
coming up, it's gonna be cold, it's gonna be
extremely windy. Dr. Glenn W -0 -G -J says he's
been kind of studying the weather down there.
It looks like there's about a storm down there,
a windstorm, like every 300 out of 365 days out
of the year, the wind is screaming down there.
And so we're gonna have to fight the wind and
the ice and the cold. So Bouvet may probably
be the roughest expedition I'll ever be on. And
you're still going. I believe so. I just sent
off another check, uh, um, a couple of days ago,
uh, another payment checks. So I, I, I'm still
serious. Yeah. Still, still in it. All right.
Well, very good. That that's, uh, that's interesting
stuff. And, uh, I know you you've gone around
and talked to you a lot of, um, Clubs and a lot
of hamfests about contesting We talked a little
bit about you know what you would say to a beginning
DX or anything different that you would go for
the contest crowd Well, that's another good question.
After you get your first radio, and you're happy
with your first radio, and if you're on a limited
budget and stuff, instead of buying an amplifier,
put your money into the antennas. Increase your
antenna arsenal first for your contesting. If
you still got in some extra money left over by
an amplifier so and then for experience wise
I I like to say operate every contest that you
can even if you only put in like put in and like
a few hours and And and don't forget the state
QSO parties Val just got a really nice plaque
from the Pennsylvania QSO party, so There's a
lot of plaques out there. I actually sponsor
a plaque for the Indiana QSO party because a
friend of mine who's now a silent key had some
property down in Prairie County, Indiana and
He him and his buddies went down there and did
the Indiana QSO party every year. So to honor
him I I Donate a plaque in his memory. So don't
forget the you know don't forget the all the
contests operate all of them you can and then
find a local contest club you know find somebody
that wants to help you out and what better place
is a local contest club and then try and join
a regional contest club like in our region here
it's the society of midwest contesters and we
have a the society of midwest contesters has
a you know, a yearly meeting as a whole weekend.
And it's we have lots of presentations going
on. And there's there's a lot of a lot of information
gets exchanged. And then if you're gonna have
to stop you Jerry, we're out of time here. But
thanks for coming on the show. It's Jerry WB
nine said thanks for tuning in next week. Bryant
rascal KG 5 HVO a 13 year old CW op and check
out ham talk live .com 73.