Hi! I’m Dick Barnes and I’m an Extra Class HAM operator. My call is WB4YZU, and I have operated overseas as VQ9D (Seychelles – before independence), VQ9D/D (Desroches – when it was still part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, before being returned to the Seychelles at independence), S79D (Seychelles – after independence), VQ9RB (Diego Garcia, BIOT), and G0/WB4YZU (during a nice vacation that I spent with G0RHL, Di, and G0RHM, John).
I’ve been QRT on HF since 1993 and am just getting back into hamming at the absolute bottom of the sunspot cycle. I’ve been working mostly 40 and 30 meters, and find that there’s a lot of DX still down at the bottom of the 40 meter band. I work almost exclusively CW and try to get on as often as possible.
I’ve dug out my old tried and true Kenwood TS850S/AT that I had on Diego Garcia, and it seems to work just fine. I did do the mod to move the lithium memory battery off the circuit board to prevent corrosion. It took me a few evenings of operating to get to where my fingers don’t hesitate when I reach for a knob to make an adjustment. I’m using a Carolina Windom/2 that I’ve had unused in a box in the attic for years, fed through a MFJ Versa Tuner II for 40 through 10 meters. As of this date, I’ve only got the antenna up about 15 feet, but just need to get a support line up further in the big maple tree in the backyard. I need to find a slingshot or bow and arrow to get it higher.
That’s about it for me. I’ll write more over on the Home page when I have a bit of free time. Thanks for stopping by!
