The Technician years - KE6BER

I studied for at took my Technician test in the summer of 1993 while I was living in Los Altos, CA.  By the time I received my call, KE6BER, I had left for college and was living in Springfield, MA.  My first year as an amateur radio operator was limited to chatting on 2m and 70cm on local repeaters with my Yaesu FT-530 handheld.  I operated mainly from my dorm room with the "rubber duckie" antenna on a suction cup mount on the outside of the window.  Over the next two years I remained active on 2m and 70cm and became mildly interested in HF, so I started learning the code.  When I returned home for the summer in 1995 I took the 5wpm test and passed it - barely!  I had purchased a used TS-940 and was eager to get on HF.  That summer I operated my first Field Day with the local club at my home in California, the Electronics Museum Amateur Radio Club (now the Foothills Amateur Radio Society).  Since I was now a tech plus I operated the Novice station and had fun on 10M phone, but struggled through CW contacts on 40M. 

From Technician to Advanced - My CW Story

During Field Day 1995 I was encouraged to hang out in the CW trailer.  I listened to K6MA, Stan Khule, who could send/receive CW really fast (probably 25-30 wpm) and tell me what was going on at the same time.  There was a 2nd op duping and logging.  After probably 20 minutes the logging op got up to take a break.  Stan asked me to sit down and help him.  He would call out the callsign he copied and I would check it for dupes.  If it was not a dupe, then I would log the call and he would send the exchange.  Soon I started to pick up on the rhythm and was copying about every 3rd character.  After another 20 minutes or so, Stan needed a quick break so he shoved the key over to me (pileup and all) and someone else filled in dupe checking/logging.  In actuality the dupe checker/logger was also copying most everything.  Stan soon returned but just kept dupe checking and logging.  I was on the air for probably an hour and became fairly comfortable by the end.  I still needed the copying backup, but it was definitely getting easier.  I loved working stations on 10M phone, and since I now had much better CW skills I worked hard to pass my general that summer.  I passed both the 13 and 20wpm code tests and passed the general exam.  When I returned to school in the fall I continued to study for my Advanced, which I took a couple of times and failed before I finally passed it in the spring of 1996. 

The Contest Bug

During Field Day 1995 I not only caught the CW bug, but the contesting bug.  I got a taste of the high rates and snappy exchanges that contesting brings, and I loved it.  I dabbled in different contests from home in CA and was very interested in putting a station at my college.  There was little support for this at the college, so I looked for other outlets for my contesting desires.  Through the Yankee Clipper Contest Club I got connected with the KY1H (now K1TTT) Multi-Multi station in Peru, MA.  I operated several DX contests from Dave's nice station in Peru and really enjoyed the experience.  I wanted to have a station of my own to operate.  My family had moved from California to Massachusetts when my mother retired, and lived on a beautiful hilltop in Baldwinville, Massachusetts.  I was able to erect a US Tower TX-472MDP with a Force 12 C4S at the top.  I continued to operate major DX contests from K1TTT , and also from home in Baldwinville. 

From KE6BER to KE1FO

When I graduated from college, I had met my wife Heather, and decided to stay put in Massachusetts.  I submitted a form 610 to the FCC requesting a new sequential callsign and in the summer of 1997 I received KE1FO.  I continued living in Baldwinville and operated from home, K1TTT and KV1W.  For a few short years I organized a group to participate in the CQWW RTTY contest in the multi operator single transmitter low power (MOL) category from K1TTT.  The group won the US the first year, broke the USA record the 2nd year, the NA record the 3rd year - the 2nd and 3rd year we came in 2nd in the world - all using the KE1FO callsign.  Since I stopped organizing that group they have continued to operate from K1TTT and again broke the world record and in 2003 won the world title!

Marriage and CC&Rs

In the spring of 2000 I married and moved to a home on a city lot in Worcester, MA.  The lot was hilly and I was a newlywed.  I continued to operate from KV1W occasionally but was mainly inactive otherwise and had no station at home in Worcester.  My wife and I both knew that we didn’t want to live there forever and so I didn’t take the time to set up a station.  In 2001 my wife became pregnant with our first child and we began the process of moving to Vermont, where we had decided we wanted to raise our children.  In the summer of 2001 we moved to Milton, VT.  I knew that we would be staying in this home for some time, so in the summer of 2002 I began setting up a station.  In spite of the deed restrictions I have erected a fairly extensive low visibility SO2R contest station.  In setting up the station in Vermont, I discovered the domestic contests.  My antennas are low and much better suited to domestic contacts than DX contacts.

Kids, Work, & Contesting

Having tried several antennas that were less than impressive, or caused RFI problems for my neighbors of myself, I decided in the summer of 2006 to get bold and try putting up a dipole that utilized a tree in the neighborhood common land for one end.  This allowed me to put up a 40/20M parallel dipole with lobes facing roughly E/W.  The antenna is only about 20 feet off the ground, however it was a great improvement over everything else I had (all shortened, loaded, matched, etc.).  I could work some DX again, and it seemed that the antenna was not causing any RFI outside of my property.  This antenna got my juices flowing again, and the following spring (2007) I decided that I really wanted to get my C3S up in the air again, even if it was very low.  I started investigating possibilities for a temporary or portable tower that could be set up/torn down easily for contest weekends.  I settled on a Universal Tower 4-30 30 foot aluminum tower.  I had a custom made base using their flat roof mount as a model and adding four long steel spikes to the bottom so it could be driven into the ground.  The plan was for the tower to be raised/lowered using a winch and falling derrick, and like my US Tower, I could "tilt it over" by myself.  Once all was setup, I found that the drive in base did not provide enough stability to raise the tower without having others to keep tension on the guy lines as the tower went up.  Once the tower went up immediately before CQWW Phone 2007, I have left it up (about 5 weeks now).  I have yet to have any complaints from neighbors about RFI or appearance.  At this point, I hope to leave the current setup in place until the spring (after the main contest season is over) and then store the tower/antenna for the summer.  I am considering placing the tower in a small cement base (not enough to make the tower "self supporting" per the Universal tower guidelines, just enough to keep the base solid during raising/lowering) to see if I would be able to raise/lower the tower on my own then.  Check out my score summary page to see what contests I've participated in since erecting this new antenna.