WA7KPK

L. Creede Lambard

1515 N. 150th St.

Shoreline, WA 98133


47.73757° North, 122.33913° West (Grid square CN87tr)

WAS, WAC, RCC, CPC 25 WPM. Ten-Ten International (currently inactive). Licensed since 1968. Here's a brief essay about my history as a radio ham, if you're interested.

I won my section in the 1979 Phone Sweepstakes, but I cheated by living in Montana at the time – a very poopular section. (I got a Clean Sweep out of it!)

Here's a presentation I gave in November 2012 to the members of Mercury Northwest (a public service oriented ham radio club in the Seattle area). Feel free to borrow it if you're looking for a basic introduction to digital modes, and if you do, please let me know!

These days I mostly operate using the JT65 digital mode on bands 80 through 15, as well as 2m and 70cm FM for local repeater and emcomm work. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to do some fun things like meteor scatter and EME one of these days. Click here to see a (non-exhaustive) list of repeaters local to the Seattle area. You can often find me on the PSRG repeater (WW7PSR, 146.96, minus offset, 103.5 tone) or on the Woodinville repeater (K6RFK, 147.34, plus offset, no tone).

Equipment


Yaesu FT-897, pre-D model with DSP installed but no 60-meter capability as far as I can tell. (That's OK, I wasn't planning on using 60 meters anyway.) Twelve DXCC entities and 41 states using this little rig and a combination of the dipole and the loop. Not bad for a scrawny little station, huh?

Quansheng TG-UV2, a nifty little dual band handheld. Cheap too (dollar-wise, not construction-wise). I carry it with me just about everywhere I go.

Antennas


KB9VBR 2 Meter J-Pole. The venerable "copper cactus". About as solid an antenna as anyone makes. Works in portions of the 440 band too. Would work much better if I moved it outside.

A small generic whip for the handheld. I know, not terribly exciting.

A TV twin lead J-pole for emergency use. Needs a BNC-to-SMA adapter to work with the Quansheng.

A 40 meter dipole, more or less. About 70 feet. long and not nearly far enough off the ground.

A 1-wavelength 80 meter loop. Currently it just runs along the fence line in the back yard. I would like to get it up higher; as it is it's a perfect alligator antenna – all mouth and no ears. I consistently get better signal reports than I give out.

An MFJ 900 manual tuner. An old timer I picked up last year at the Puyallup Hamfeat. Very bare bones π-network tuner, no meters, no rollers, nothing but an inductor, two variable capacitors, a couple of SO-239s and binding posts for the loop. Easily transportable for emergency or Field Day operation. Works great with the loop and the dipole, though sadly not both at the same time.

Future Plans


All of the antennas below are projects I'm either working on (under construction) or that I want to put together depending on resources, materials and time (under contemplation). Watch this page for updates.

Homebrewed 5 element 2 meter quad built from plans in an issue of QST about 16 years ago. I built one of these right after the article came out, and it was a fantastic antenna. under construction

An 8-element 2-meter quagi for working 2-meter CW, digital and the like. under contemplation (needs a 14-foot boom)

A couple of Moxon beams, including a 6-meter Moxon. The sunspot peak should be here soon, and I want to be ready when it arrives. I have the parts for a 6-meter and maybe a 2-meter version; they just need measurement, cutting, assembly and testing. under construction