The KI7XH Amateur Radio Station
My first ham radio license - Technician Class - showed up in my mailbox November 5th of 1993. My original call was KB7ZKF. I knew right away that I didn't want to be limited to VHF and UHF communications, so I picked up some study material and a copy of Morse Tutor and got to work. I upgraded my Tech License on March 24th of 1994. What a fine day that was! I'll never forget the drive home. I had an Advanced Class license! It was time to start planning a ham radio station that would allow me to communicate with the WORLD! A few long months of calling "KB7ZKF/AA" and I became KI7XH.
Andie got licensed soon after, and was assigned KC7CTY. The hams in town immediately picked the phonetics for her callsign - Clearly Too Young.
I disappeared from ham radio during 1995, '96, and most of '97 because we were building the alternative energy house. It was fantastic to get back on the air! After seven years and two locations, here's my shack...
What's in there? For High Frequency, there's...
 | Yaesu FT-990DC HF rig |
| Yaesu MD-1 Desk Microphone |
| Heil Pro Headset |
| Bencher Iambic paddle |
| Yaesu SP-6 speaker with integral Timewave DSP-59Y |
| Ameritron AL-811 amplifier |
| MFJ MF-986 Differential-T tuner |
| AEA PK-232 multi-mode TNC |
| Astron RS-35M 12VDC power supply |
| Yaesu G-800S rotator |
| Kenwood R-5000 receiver |
The VHF/UHF station is comprised of the following...
| Kenwood TS-790A w/ 2M and 70cm modules |
| Realistic Pro-2006 scanner |
| Connect Systems CS-950 Simplex Telephone Interconnect |
To handle audio frequency, I have an old stereo cassette deck, a graphic equalizer, and a Realistic PA amp driving a couple of bookshelf speakers. The Laptop is an older KiwiNote w/100MHz Pentium. I use it for packet and RTTY. It is also linked with my alternative energy system via a Bobier Electronics OmniMeter four channel shunt meter. This allows me to track currents and voltages of my batteries, inverter, solar panels, and windcharger.
For portable and mobile use, there's a Yaesu FT-840 HF rig, along with various other mobile and HT rigs. I also have a Yaesu FT-100D mobile rig in my 1980 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U1300L Expedition Camper.
Outside, you'll find a home-brew tower, only 36 feet tall. It's self-supporting (un-guyed) and bolted to a 5.33 cubic yard chunk of concrete. I fabricated the four legged tower from 1.5" x 1.5" x .083" square tubing and 3/8" cold-rolled rod for triangulation and ladder rungs...
Along with my wind charger, the tower supports a variety of antennae...
| feedpoint of a full-wave 160M horizontal loop |
| Cushcraft ARX-2b 2M omnidirectional |
| KB0LHJ home-brew six-element 2M yagi |
| home-brew 70cm groundplane |
| home-brew discone scanner antenna |
I also have a tri-bander (10M/15M/20M) with a 40M kit I'd like to install soon, but I haven't decided if I want to guy the tower yet. So far, so good though. There's an anemometer at the top and the highest recorded wind-speed - to date - is 114 MPH! She's still standing! I don't know what would have happened if the beam had been mounted on top.
73 de KI7XH and KC7CTY