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"Amateur radio is as old as the radio art," is a popular aphorism among proponents of this mature but still vital hobby. Marconi was essentially a radio amateur when he conducted the first experiments in wireless communication. The first trans-Atlantic radio communications were conducted by amateurs, including some at MIT, my alma mater. Hams today continue this history of experimentation and innovation. They are also among our nation's most selfless volunteers in times of emergency and among the world's most avid competitors. For more information, see Hello Radio!
Northern CA Contest Club (NCCC)
Rick Tavan N6XI
Formerly N7TN, K1RC, W1DVH, K3QDD, KN3QDD
Son of Norm K3QDC (Silent Key); Father of Jeremy KC6YEW; Husband of Ann KD6MOB
Trustee of WF6C (Filly Contest Group, Truckee, CA)
Former Trustee of K6BSA (Troop 566 Amateur Radio Club, Saratoga, CA)
Long-ago former trustee of W1MX (MIT Radio Society)
Rural ridge-top location at 5900' MSL, about 400' above Boca Reservoir, 20 miles north of Lake Tahoe, 8 miles east of Truckee center, 35 miles southwest of Reno, NV
Elecraft K3/100 + P3 + KPA500/KAT500
Elecraft K4 + KPA1500
SO2R via RigSelect PRO prototype SO2R Box, Dunestar 600 BPFs, absurd amounts of mental masochism
72' Crankup: 4el SteppIR 14-54 MHz, Force 12 Mag 240N, Force 12 Sigma 80 Rotary Dipole
28' Rohn 25: Force 12 C4S with dipole element modified for 30M
Inverted L for 160 over two elevated radials
Force 12 "Tornado" Vertical for 80/40 (flat on the ground at this writing)
Remotely controllable with K4 Remote and remoterig.com 1258 boxes for the K3
N6XI Saratoga, CA, CM87xg
Flat, suburban location about 3 miles northeast of the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, adjacent to San Jose, 50 miles southeast of San Francisco.
Elecraft K4 + K3/100 + ACOM 1000
48' Rohn 25: Force 12 320/240, 310/315; M2 3el 6; 80m drooping dipole
Control site for mountain station
Logging Software: N1MM Logger+ at both sites for contesting, RUMlogNG for casual operating, DX4WIN for consolidated log database
WRTC: Selected by team captain K6XX as his teammate in the July, 2010 World Radiosport Team Championship in Moscow, the "World Cup of Radio Contesting." This was a great honor, to be selected to compete on a uniquely level playing field against some of the world's best radio contesters. (What the heck is radio contesting? Click here.) ... Results: In this 24 hour event, we made 3115 contacts and 328 multipliers for 3,059,256 points and came in 25th out of 48 competing teams, missing the "Top Half" by one contact! This exceeded almost all of our goals in this competition among giants. I'm jazzed. See Final Results (We were R31A.) and my NCJ Blog entries:
The non-ham chair of my 40th college Reunion, a journalist, liked the story enough to ask me to present it at our class forum. Here are the slides. I enjoyed it so much that I attended WRTC 2014 in New England as a spectator and competed in WRTC 2018 in Germany as a sponsored entry with teammate AE6Y. The competition had learned a lot about this format in the meantime but I had not, so our results at Y82L were deeply mired in the bottom half. I really need to embrace passing multipliers!