Welcome
My name is Ross Vaagen. I have been licensed since 1988 and have studied enough to become a General. My interests in the Amateur Radio hobby started when I was in grade school. I knew a couple of Hams, and they told me just enough to get my curiousity going. My first contacts were on 10 meters. I was going to college, and could not afford a rig, so I converted a Cobra 148 GTL radio that I had in my car and used a 102" whip antenna on the back bumper. My most memorable contact with that system was to a JA station in Japan. I have built quite a few antennas that I use and I work on my most of my own equipment. I am an electronics technician by trade and work on business band radios and mobile phones. I travel on the road most days working on a variety of things from installing radios to tower climbing.
Currently my amateur radio interest is in VHF weak signal and repeaters. I maintain some of the local repeaters in my area and I am starting to build up an antenna farm for vhf contesting. I have 3 bands at this time, and hope to get at lease 1 more by the end of the year. Currently I am running on 6 meters with a Kenwood TS-690 runing 40 watts into a 4cx250b amplifier. On 2 meters and 70cm I have a Kenwood TS-790 satellite rig with 40 and 35 watts. I have a 170 and 100 watt brick amplifier for those bands. I also have a 2cx250b tube amp for 2 meters. My antennas are on a 50 ft Rohn 25g tower. Starting at the top I have a ringo for 2m, 19 el 432 mhz horizontal beam at 60ft, 17el 144mhz beam at 57ft, and 4 el 6m beam at 52 ft. Below that I have a G5RV for the HF bands. I get on 3937 lsb in the evenings on the ND net at 6:30 cst.
Other projects I have going are putting together a tube amplifier for 432 and converting a 144 Ten-tec transverter to work on the 220 band. I will need to add an antenna and feed line up my tower for 220. I hope to get that done sometime soon.
My other hobbies include fishing, boating, camping, skiing, rc aircraft, and most things that have to do with electronics.
QSL Info:
Ross Vaagen
424 South 4th St.
Wahpeton, ND 58075
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since 02/04/99