N8VCL on the Web

I was first licensed in 1984 as KA8YQK. Since then I've served six years in the Navy, lived on both coasts, upgraded three times, returned to Cleveland for 14 years, and now I have moved to Plattsmouth Nebraska, 25 miles south of Omaha.

Over the years my rigs have included a Tempo 20/20, a Yaesu FT-897, FT-100, and FT-857. The current gear includes a Xiegu G90 SDR 20W transciever as well as a recently aquired FT-710. What a radio that is. Also online with FT-710 are an LDG AT-600 tuner and RM-Italy BLA350Plus 300W amp. An Anytone uv878ii Plus HT gets me on DMR (Brandmeister, TGIF, and the eastern Neb moto-trbo repeaters) and analog 2M/70cm, and Radioddity DB25-D which is a small mobile 2M/70cm analog and DMR radio. Also have a Tidradio for GMRS and a Baofeng because ...$25? Sure, I'll take one.

My antenna for HF is an 80-40-20M trap dipole in an inverted vee configuration. Previously I had a W3EDP end-fed wire and it was a great, simple antenna. I also had a Delta Loop, but it is not in operating configuration at the moment. One of my problems is an unrestricted clear channel AM transmitter 6 miles from home. They would get into the loop big time and desense my cheap little radio on all bands. I built a 7-pole chebychev filter that worked gud, but wiped me out of 160M. Now that I have the FT-710, it's no longer an issue.

With the Xiegu G90 and the W3EDP antenna at 20 watts, I worked Mauritia, which is as close as you can get to antipodal without a boat. In other words, it's as distant a transmission as I can possibly make on earth, as it's almost where I would pop out if I dug a hole straight down through the center of the planet. Pretty cool.

I enjoy CW ragchews, SSB roundtables, POTA hunting and occaisionally activating. I participate daily in NTS traffic nets for Central Area, Region Ten, and the state of Nebraska. Tuesday nights I'm Net Control on the 9:30PM Tenth Region Traffic Net on 3562.

Thanks for visiting. VY 73 OM/YL ES CUL