In June of 2000 I purchased a house and 2 acres located 4.2 miles north-northeast of Azle, Texas. My QTH is about 18 miles (29km) northwest of Fort Worth in the far northwest corner of Tarrant County (if you go 1.1 miles west you are in Parker County, 2.4 miles north is Wise County). It is located only 1000 feet west of Eagle Mountain Lake. I made sure there were no antenna restrictions because I wanted to finally have my own station with towers and beams. I purchased a Tri-Ex LM-354HD 54' crank-up tower at Dayton 2000 and poured the foundation for the tower on August 11, 2000. My TH-7 was put up in September of 2000. I added the Cushcraft D-3W and 80/40 Inverted Vee in September 2001. I purchased a new Kenwood TS-2000 in October, 2003. One unintended consequence of this was that I am now hooked on 6M. In April 2004 I put up 2 Rohn 25 towers-1 @ 75' high with a M2 6M7JHV 7 element 6M Beam and a M2 2M9SSB 9 element 2M beam, the other tower is 40' high with a 6M7JHV and a 440-18 18 element 440 Mhz beam.
My station currently consists of the following:
Kenwood TS-2000: Purchased in October, 2003. Got me hooked on
6M. Is now my primary rig as the HF receiver is a lot better than I
had expected.
Samlex SEC-1223 Power Supply: Slightly larger than a paperback book yet it provides 23A of power. This is a switching supply, but in side-by-side tests it is no noisier (RFI wise) than a linear supply!
RadioShack 25 Amp Power Supply: Same form factor as the Samlex, powers the TS-2000.
Ameritron AL-82 Amplifier: Added in December 2004. Uses 2 3-500Z tubes. Easily puts out legal limit on all modes. I use it with the external QSK-5 QSK T/R Switch-Vox is too slow for the pileups. Only use the amp on 80M/160M and to bust pileups on the higher bands. Run barefoot in contests, ragchewing and general DXing.
Commander VHF-1200 Amplifier: Gives me 1KW on 6M
DX4WIN Logging Software: I use this for day-to-day logging and awards tracking. This is the best logging software on the market in my opinion. Neat features include rig control, a packet
window that lets you know when you need a country by voice announcement, integrated PSK-31 software, a great map feature with gray line and 7 different projections (I love maps) and a sunrise/sunset/current time window.
Rascal
Interface: Very good value interface. I use it connected to the
accessory port on the TS2000 for real FSK on RTTY, WSJT and PSK.
Bencher BY-2 Gold Paddles: I will only ever use Bencher Paddles.
MFJ-434 Voice Keyer: Saves my voice during phone contests.
Ameritron RCS-8V: 5 position
remote antenna switch. Lets me select all 3 antennas from 1 feedline.
Tower/Antennas:
Tri-Ex LM-354HD: 54' High Crank-Up Tower. 20 foot, 1.9" diameter steel mast on top.
Can be cranked down to a nesting height of 22'. Positioned about 175' from the house at the highest point on my property.
Hy-Gain TH-7DX: 7 element 20/15/10M Tribander. Mounted just above top of tower at 55'. My first
beam and a good one. Tuned for lowest SWR on the CW end
of the bands, but works great everywhere
(less than 1.7:1 across all 3 bands, typically less than 1.5:1).
Cushcraft D-3W WARC Band Rotating Dipole: About 10' Above the TH-7 mounted 90 degrees to the
TH-7. Covers 30/17/12M. Really makes
me feel loud, particularly on 30M.
Alpha-Delta DX-DD 80/40M Dipole: Mounted as an inverted vee on a piece of 1" PVC at 54'. Ends are about 30-35' High.
Hustler 5BTV-Groundmounted. Backup antenna on the HF bands and use it with a TopTenna Tophat for 160M with 4 ground radials. I have managed to work almost 60 countries on topband with this.
