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N6QOP Bio-


My ham bio actually starts out in my high school electronics class. My teacher, Mr. Wicks (ex-navy if memory serves), insisted that we all listen to a vinyl album of a guy reciting morse code as we copied it down on paper for 10 minutes each day. Some of us were intrigued but, at 17, all were pretty unimpressed and more interested in 'Lab Time'.

Flash forward a few years to my commute with my elmer, WD6BQS, every day from the East Bay to Silicon Valley. He had an Icom 255A and was on the 'commute net' every morning on the 146.850 repeater on Mt. San Bruno. I would often third party with him and soon became part of the gang.

Shortly after that, N6QOO & W6JP and I studied together to get our tickets, complete with sending morse code back and forth via "various means" to practice. (Thank you, Mr. Wicks!!) I eventually got my technician class license in 1987 with the call N6QOP which I've kept to this day. As an annual attendee of Pacificon, I took and passed my general and extra exams while there over the next few years.

I spent the early part of my "ham career" noodling with linked UHF repeaters in Northern California with N6IRF(SK), N6QOO, W6JP and N6MVT. From this was born the California Amateur Radio Linking Association which covers pretty much all of California and Western Nevada with a connection to a similar repeater system in Oregon, the Oregon Connection.

Pictured above is the most recent incarnation of my shack. I started out with a TS680S HF rig and over the years have used an HW101, a TS520, and currently the TS590SG that you see in the pic, which I really enjoy.

I really get into making my own antennas so my first ham project was a 2M cubical quad which has lasted 30 years up on the tower. I enjoy HF rag chew and DX pile ups so I've strung a 40M dipole across the lot and built and put up a 20/17/10M multiband single feedpoint inverted V. I also have a 5BTV and an 80M Isotron antenna so most of my favorite bands are covered. Still working on a solution for 160M on my small lot.

80M Isotron. It works!             My 2M quad



Outside of amateur radio, some of my other hobbies/interests are:

Jazz music
Blues music history
Rock&Roll music history
Astronomy
Electronics Projects building
Alaskan Iditarod

73
-Jeff







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