W4IDX Stations

The Hallicrafters SX-101A on the right was a great receiver and I ran it with an HT-37 on 40 CW in college. The homebrewed antenna tuner atop the speaker tuned the 80-meter dipole on the other bands.

My Novice QSL Card from the 1980 Novice Roundup. I found it for sale on eBay. The card below it is the card I received from the novice I worked. The back of the cards are below.

Circa 1990 running a Kenwood TS-140S with the automatic antenna tuner (AT-250). The antenna was a G5RV and I had the pleasure of working G5RV with that station. You can see the SX-101A behind my chair. This picture appeared in CQ for one of the contests.

Kenwood TS-520SE station about 1995. I always wanted one of these when I was a novice. Played around with it for a few years and traded it for a Drake C-Line.

Upgraded the TS-140S station with a TS-850S station and added a JPS digital filter. Then the Drake bug bit and I bought all the Drake gear I could find. This TR-7 with RV-7 had all the filters and ran great.

Drake Tube lineup circa 1999. MN-2000 antenna tuner, C-Line, TR-4Cw with RV-4C, and the B-Line. Ran these mostly on CW but have a D-104 on the TR-4Cw. The shelf on the bottom houses the AC-4 power supplies.

Close up of the TR-4Cw.

The B-Line. A great CW station.

Various versions of the Drake Tube gear stations and the final picture with the Collins S-Line gear. A 75S-3C, 32S-3, and a KWM-2A. The Collins 30L-1 could be switched to either Collins station and the microphone on the KWM-2A was the Electro-voice 664. Haven’t found pictures yet but I also had a 75A-1, 32V-1, and a 75A-4 on another table to the left rear of this setup. They were all great radios and I enjoyed keeping them on the air. I ran Windom antennas with these stations an 80-meter one at 60 feet and a 40-meter one at 50 feet up in the North Carolina pine trees. I sure miss those here in Arizona.

Several moves and life changes later and the station is much different. Was QRT for about 20 years and picked up an FT-1000MP Mark-V Field and got back on the air in Texas with a MFJ apartment antenna. Not the best antenna but I got back on and worked some DX.

Moved to Lake Havasu City, Arizona in August of 2021 and finally got room for antennas and built a decent station. Put my Dad’s Icom 756 Pro ii and Collins 30L-1 in line and put up one of my 40-meter Windom at 20′. The antenna works well on 40-10. Don’t have quite enough room to get the 80-meter Windom up at the current QTH but may be able to get a vertical up before contest season. I jumped back into contesting recently and added a Winkeyer to the station. Running HRD logging software and N1MM for contests.