Member Bio

I was first licensed in 1963 as WN2ORJ followed by WB2ORJ and over the past 10 years as K1JOS. I like to operate on HF mainly with SSB, BPSK31 and RTTY. My interests are operating and restoring vintage ham radios with a special interest in Collins radios. Recently moved from CT to NY where for the first time I will have lots of antenna options.  The move gave me time to prepare and pass my Extra ticket and so good-by to K1JOS and now my new call sign is NY2KW.

Currently, my shack is still being unpacked from the recent move but should be up and running in late Summer 2016.  Hoping to get the Gold Dust Twins operational very soon along with my electronics workbench.

Updated: Jan 2018

Now running Flex Radio 6700 with my Alpha 87A into a Cobra 160-10m dipole up at ~ 75′.   Feedline is 450 ohm ladder line with an MFJ-998RT tuner at the house entry.  Seems to be working fine on all bands except lower end of 160m and lower end of 10m.  I will start construction on my hexbeam as soon as the winter is over.   I also began using WSJT-X with FT-8 and in one night I covered Australia, South Africa, Alaska and Hawaii (not to mention another dozen or so DXCC’s)

Updated Dec 2018

Had direct lightning hit on the Cobra dipole.  Fried the ladderline right down to my Array Solutions balanced line lightning arrestor mounted on a ground rod but nothing got into shack.  Even the MFJ998RT remote tuner mounted next to it was spared but the EMP took out various things randomly in diffenent parts of the house, such as cable box, remote light controllers, pool heater controller.  For now, I decided to not put up more wire antennaes until the Spring and instead using a GAP Titan vertical which seems to be doing an OK job so far.

Updated Jan 2021

Put up an EFHW 130′ with one end up in tree at 70′ and the balun end at 8′.  SWR on all HF bands < 1.8 and my Flex 6700 tuner gets me on 160m as well in digital modes.  So far much better reports and great DX coverage – much better than my GAP Titan.