The KEØVH Hamshack for April 2016
The latest layout of the KEØVH Hamshack November 2015 till now!
Greetings all and Happy April, man am I glad spring is just beginning. We are getting stuff done in Colorado, and I say “we” as I have had great help from my contractors and others who are so great in their skills. Special thanks to Rich W9BNO, Greg WB7AHO, Ray AAØL, Mike in Rye CO, (of course I am working on him to get his ham license, you know me!) Jon Banks in Glenwood Springs, and Bill, WØBX in Grand Junction. Couldn’t get it all done without these fine gentlemen! Thanks Guys!
Speaking of thanks and so much more, the K-LOVE/Air1 Satellite uplink facility has now been officially dedicated to Alan Guthrie, one of the most incredible men I have been blessed to know and get to learn from in my entire career. He was as I called him “our satellite guru” who knew more about anything satellite than anyone I ever knew, and was of of the most instrumental and dynamic people to work at K-LOVE. His love for the Lord and getting the message out was second to none, and Alan was responsible for most of the satellite capabilities, infrastructure, and day to day operations of the entire network. He suddenly went to be with Jesus last year, and I had been meaning to include a piece about him here in the “Hamshack”. If you ever get the chance to visit EMF headquarters in Rocklin CA, be sure to ask to see the uplink facility that Alan helped to design and build. I bet he is having a great time “walkin’ the streets of gold” and telling some wonderful stories
W5WCA Operating position Grand Lake CO area
By the way, many of you know Cris Alexander W5WCA, the DOE for Crawford Broadcasting. Cris sent me this picture of his well appointed operating position (next to his recliner J) in his cabin up near Grand Lake CO in the mountains NW of Denver. Cris is very active talking to a lot of friends on 40 and 80 meters from here on the weekends and whenever he gets up to their mountain getaway. You can catch Cris on 7.166 talking to Harvey WØHLC and Mark K5IR in the mornings and another group of us on 3.700 around 7pm mountain time. His 30 over S9 signal blankets CO quite well with his setup!
And keeping in the family, Cris daughter Amanda KDØCIC (Amanda is the Chief Engineer for all the Crawford stations in the Denver area) and her husband Jordon KDØSSK operate this very fine station from their home in Aurora CO. I really like the way they have it laid out. Good job guys. Amanda is now Extra class so congratulations to her, and Jordon isn’t too far behind with his General. I understand he is getting ready to upgrade now, so all that is left for these two is who gets to use the radio shack first! J J J. I bet I know who will win that one LOL!!!!
Amanda working the DX from Aurora CO
In March we had an honest to God full up blizzard in Denver! We lost power at the KEØVH QTH for an entire day, some areas of Denver for 3 days. Phone service was uninterrupted, and yes I had ham radio ready to go via UPS plus charged HT’s. However the power company here in Denver is really pretty good and had crews out all day in this mess. Amazing!
KLDV and co-located KXKL suffered power bumps all that day. I had to run K-LOVE on the backup transmitter since my main lost a filament fuse due to on off on off conditions all day. KXKL lost a rectifier stack in the high voltage power supply. In the above picture is Barry Thomas, CE for KXKL after he and I rode up in the Argo Avenger 750 to the site the next day. Yes, the roads in Denver were pretty clear by the second day. We had plenty of spares on hand so the mains were back up on both stations in a couple of hours after reaching the site. Tough job huh?!?!?! J
NICE DAY! KLDV, KXKL, and KRMT TV tower in view
Easter weekend was the big CQ WW SSB contest. Before and after church that weekend I managed to get some operating in as DX was coming in from all over of course. Here is a shot of part of my log from that weekend! It actually gained me a few new countries in the Logbook of the World counts. The Flex 3000 was the rig I used this weekend. It was lots of fun as I wasn’t really interested in running up a big contest score but just working stations that I wanted to in a “hunt & peck” mode of operating. Very relaxed and a lot of fun.
Part of the Ham Radio Deluxe log for the weekend!
A STL antenna raising party at Cumulus Broadcasting in Colorado Springs
In the above picture (taken by Rich W9BNO) you can see the STL dish move as the roof had been redone at the Cumulus stations building in Colorado Springs. Ray Uberecken AAØL (2nd from left in the picture) was leading the crew in the move to a better location of the roof. Rich was along that day helping Ray too. The crew had to move the dishes and re-aim them. The transmitter sites on Cheyenne Mountain are off to the left in this picture, but you can see Pikes Peak there to the right. Honestly I think the scenery where we work out here just can’t be beat!
I haven’t quite figured this one out yet. On a gate west of Fort Collins. Not enough locks!
One of our kitty cats, Celestia, helping out during the contest!
Funny kitty, she comes in meowing at me and wants up in the chair quite frequently wanting me to pet her, and she gets annoyed when I don’t pay attention to her. Maybe she wants a ham license?
Don’t forget the Monday Night Broadcast Engineering
IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, every MONDAY EVENING
At 7pm Mountain time (9pm Eastern) for radio discussions, both
Broadcast engineering and amateur radio. The first and
3rd Mondays are also SBE NET nights. Details on how to
Join are at http://www.ke0vh.com/net/net.html. I hope
You will be able to join us and share your engineering and
Ham exploits!
73’ & God be with you. See you next time! de KEØVH