WW2PT Station Info 27-Jan-2008: After nearly 6 years at Lake Wallkill, we are preparing to move back to the old Closter NJ QTH. Bad news: I'll be losing my dark skies and greatly limiting my astronomy activities. Good news: I'll have antennas!!! I plan to install a GAP
Titan DX vertical for HF, and perhaps also the old Cushcraft R7000 vertical in order to have a second antenna for a possible (half-assed) attempt at SO2R contest operation.
All of this is still a bit in the future, there's the small matter of selling the lake house and renovating the Closter house. Meanwhile, a couple of short coax runs from
the shack out to the Jeep puts me on the air
using an Outbacker Perth Plus (HF) and a Diamond (VHF/UHF) as temporary
antennas for the shack. A far from ideal situation to be certain, but I've made some contacts this way and it works fairly well for SWLing.
My main HF radios for the past decade or so have been Japan Radio Co. (JRC) models: a JST-245 is the main HF transceiver at WW2PT and has been used over the years for a bit of IOTA and DXCC chasing and some casual contesting; an NRD-535D is my primary receiver for SWBC listening; and a pair of classics, the NRD-505 and NRD-515, are used mostly for mediumwave DX with a Kiwa Air Core Loop, and occasionally for HF.
In 2007 I built an Elecraft KX1 QRP CW transceiver; this has rekindled my interest in QRP operation and CW. My first rig was a Heathkit HW-9 that I built in 1985 a couple of years before I earned my first ham ticket. With the HW-9 I learned the code and made my first QSOs tapping out CW on a straight key with a shaky fist.
It's here!!!!
In May 2007 I ordered the newly announced Elecraft K3 HF/6M transceiver, choosing it over several other contenders. The Yaesu FT-2000, Icom IC-756PROIII, Ten-Tec Omni VII were all on the short list, but the K3 won out not just becuase of the great specs but also my great admiration for the Elecraft company and the designers. The K3 finally arrived in January 2008 and my early impression is "Wow!" - an absolutely superb design, the DSP filtering and noise reduction are incredible, and there are a ton of features packed into this little rig that I'm still figuring out how to tweak to my liking. This is no doubt a keeper!
A Dressler ara-2000 VHF/UHF active receiving antenna (25-2000 MHz)
is used with a Realistic Pro 2005 and an AOR AR-8000, fed simultaneously through an RF Systems SP-3 antenna splitter.
The shack is looking a little empty. I sold off some equipment - the JST-135 station went on eBay in 2005; the FT-817 and VX-1R are gone as well.
The future WW2PT, age 14, with
my first receiver, a Realistic DX-160.
Circa. 1977 • QTH: Closter NJ
Brief History: I started playing with shortwave radios during the summer of 1976. My first radio was a Realistic DX-160 which was purchased with paper route money. I lost interest after a while, but "rediscovered" shortwave DXing while studying at Berklee College of Music when I purchased a Sony ICF-6500 portable to combat boredom during the cold Boston winters. This renewed interest in radio led to a job at Gilfer Shortwave in Park Ridge, NJ in 1987. I earned my first amateur general class license (N2HIE) in 1987 and quickly upgraded to Advanced Class; when vanity calls became available I changed my call to WW2PT in 1998. After 3 or so years at Gilfer, I worked for Japan Radio Company, Ltd. (JRC) as sales manager for amateur radio and land mobile communications products, and returned to Gilfer in 1994 until the company's demise a few years later. Over the years I've dabbled in many different aspects of the hobby - RTTY, satellites, QRP, 6m and 2m SSB - but have always enjoyed HF phone the most
Notes On The Japan Radio
Co. NRD-535 HF Receiver 13-Nov-2005: My role in JRC's development of the NRD-535 receiver was akin to that of a midwife during childbirth - while others did all of the work (JRC's First Engineering Dept., led by T. Shiono-san), I was simply there to tell them when to push. The '535 was a marked improvement over the NRD-525, one which addressed nearly all of the criticisms of it's predecessor functionality and performance. I feel fortunate to have been able to play a small part in bringing it to market.
My time at JRC's New York office coincided with the design and release of the NRD-535 receiver, JRL-2000F linear amplifier, and JST-245 HF transceiver (the latter was actually released in the USA shortly after I left JRC, but I was present during the design process). I will post more info to this page as I uncover more of my old JRC notes and continue to wax nostalgic about my JRC days. For now, there's some artist concept drawings of 4 proposed designs that I brought home with me from the NRD-535 design review meetings at JRC's Mitaka factory in June 1990. It's interesting to contemplate what might have been - for example, was the civilized world ready for a shortwave receiver with an ASS button? ;-)
Receiver Overview: The Japan Radio
Co. NRD-505 10-Mar-2003:A tribute to my favorite communications receiver.
The first draft of the text was done around 1992 when I was working
for JRC. Gerry Dexter asked if I would be interested in authoring a book
for Tiare
Publications about the NRD-series of shortwave radios. NRD-505:
An Historical and Technical Overview would have been the
first chapter, but as fate would have it the project never
materialized: I left JRC later that year and the book was put
on hold – permanently, as it turned out. When I rediscovered the Word documents a few years ago on an old drive I formatted them for the web, filled in a few blanks, added some neat links and PDF files related to JRC, and here it is.
27-Jan-2008:
