kapone.net · amateur radio · licensed 1992

AB6TR.

My ham radio corner. CW is my mode, and you'll find me on 10, 15 and 20 meters now and then, whenever the bands are open.

How it startedThree Calls in Three Months

KD6JZF→KM6ZD→AB6TR

I was first licensed in 1992 as KD6JZF. I didn't stay there long. I quickly upgraded to Advanced and became KM6ZD, and once I passed my 20 words-per-minute code test, I became AB6TR.

All of that happened within three months.

Then and nowThe Shack

Scott in a hat and glasses seated at his operating desk, with radios, a boom microphone, computer monitors and framed certificates on the wall — Mid-1990s. At the operating position, with a few certificates on the wall and the rigs within reach.

A Kenwood TS-180S station on a wooden desk shelf, with a desk microphone and a brass Scotia telegraph key in front — McKinleyville, 2007–08, and it's the same today: same desk, same rigs. The Kenwood 180 line on the shelf: a TS-180S transceiver with its matching outboard VFO, antenna tuner and speaker, plus an SM-220 station monitor, all running off an Astron power supply. The brass key out front is a Scotia key, made right here in Humboldt County decades ago.

Humboldt Amateur Radio Club, 1994Field Day

Del Freret, Scott in headphones at the radio, and Dennis Trabue under a green Army surplus tent at a folding table of radio gear, in a mounted print titled Humboldt Amateur Radio Club Field Day 1994 — More than 30 years ago: copying Morse code during the Field Day contest under an Army surplus tent, running on emergency power. Left to right: Del Freret, W6KOZ; me at the key; and Dennis Trabue, KE6ETK.

On the airListen for .- -... -.... - .-.

I prefer working CW. These days I get on the air occasionally, mostly on these bands when they're open:

10m15m20m

If you hear AB6TR, give me a call. You can also look me up on QRZ.

73!