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KQ8RP Amateur Radio Station

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Welcome to KQ8RP Amateur Radio Station

We have been hamming it up since 1983 and this is still one of the hobbies we still really enjoy. We have met alot of nice people from around the world and still talk with many of them today.

I am a member of ARRL and like to operate HF most often. I enjoy casual contesting, building wire antennas as well as vertical antennas.

Favorite bands are 60 meters and 160 meters.

Here is a run down of our station:

QTH: Westerville, OH USA, Franklin County Note: (Westerville is our mailing address. We reside in The State Capital in Columbus, OH.)

Ex Calls: KA4UVN, N4JXI, First licensed in 1983 Louisville, KY

HF Rigs: Yaesu 857D

Antenna Tuner: MFJ IntelliTuner MFJ998

HF Amplifiers: Ameritron AL-80B wired 240 volts

HF Antennas: Homebrew vertical for 60 Meters and 160m horizontal loop

Logging Software: N3FJP's Amateur Radio Software

3905 Century Club: Certificate Numbers 160m #345 - 75m #2562 - 40m #2317

OMISS: Certificate Number - #5475

The Yaesu 857D has been my mobile rig in the past or back up radio. My primary rig was a Flex SDR 1000 which I recently sold and will soon replace it with the Flex Radio 5000A.

But I will have to say that the Yaesu 857 D is a great radio which so many features. I don't really use it much on the VHF frequency's. But I do use on SSB and PSK modes and with all the DSP features it works out great.

I have a Audio Technica AT2020 on a boom mic using a outbound Behringer unit. Now the audio is not Flex Quality audio but it works out fine.

MFJ IntelliTuner Automatic Antenna Tuner

MFJ-998

I bought this new over a year ago and replaced my Ameritron ATR-30 tuner and I have not regretted it at all. This tuner has preformed excellent. It makes jumping bands very simple and I have never had a issue out of it using my amplifier.

75 Meter Vertical Homebrew

This used to be a GAP Antenna which I didn't think ever worked very well. I used the aluminum and had to purchase a bit more from DX Engineering. But I have a 50 foot vertical which we use on 75 meters and it works very well. I did have it at 43 feet on the 60 meter band but now I have raised it up to 50 feet and it plays very well on 75 meters as well as other bands.

The side arms you see there now are removed and it is just a straight 50 foot vertical.

Vertical Base and Radial Wires

This vertical was first designed for 60 meters. So I had 42 radials 43 feet long and now recently I have added 26 radials 30 foot or less. I decided to purchase the DX Engineering Radio plate with tilt over mount and it makes life so much easier raising and lowering this vertical.

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Dave KD6A Jul 10, 2010 @ 9:33 am | delete

Has anyone locally installed an electric fence? The one I used to have generated a lot of RF hash but pulsed quite a bit slower than the noise you are hearing. It was a simple mechanical relay so I suspect a solid state version could easily cycle this fast.