The StationA little history first: I was first licensed in 1997 as KD5CAS. My station at that time was a Kenwood TS-430, MFJ antenna tuner, and a 135-foot dipole fed with ladder line up at 35 feet. I had a ball with this setup. After Field Day 1998 where I was exposed to contesting for the first time, I began seeking improvements to the station. I acquired a TH3JR and put it up at 45 feet fixed to Europe. Soon the rig was upgraded to an Icom IC-751A, and I even got the UX-14 for computer control with NA to log. I was in high cotton! Along the way I upgraded the rig again to a IC-756. In November 1999, a new Lightning Bolt 2-element 5-band cubical quad was my newest upgrade along with the HD-73 rotator. This antenna was a very noticeable inprovement to the station. As often happens to young couples, the children began coming in 1997 and by 2003 we had acquired 4 harmonics. In consequence, we had outgrown our 2 bedroom house - all four children were sharing a 11'x 11' bedroom. It was time to find another home; my eye was also considering growing the station at the new location. In early 2005, our family sold our little home, so the station was dismantled and boxed up for a couple of years while we scrambled to purchase land, build the shop (which we lived in for 2 1/2 years) and finally build our new home.  Our new QTH is 12 acres in rural western Ouachita Parish in northeast Louisiana. The majority of the land is pasture, with the only mature trees lying on the north and east boundaries of the property. It is a rectangle, running east-west 1,332 feet and north-south 400 feet. I'm located at 32.46222 -92.40288 in grid square EM32tl at 265 feet above sea level, which is high for Louisiana! . Take a look via Google Earth to see what I mean!
Finally with our new home completed in July 2007 and many other projects out of the way, I have began construction of the shack and station in summer 2008. I have plenty of room, and no municipal or zoning restrictions of any kind to hinder my station building. I used HFTA by N6BV to get a feel for the surrounding terrain as I planned and designed my station. Link to that data here. Since we were no longer living in the shop, I decided to build the new shack as a room inside the shop. The shop is 40 feet by 40 feet with central heat and air, a woodburning stove, complete kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room (see the floorplan in my photo album) In order to utilize the workshop area to its fullest potential, the layout places the shack open to the kitchen and the bathroom door opens from the shack. I have supplied the shack with its own 100amp subpanel with 20 circuit capacity. The shop has its own power meter, and is supplied with 200amp service. I started the construction of the shack in May of 2008, and as of June 14, 2008 the operating position is in the new shack. At that time, the only tower was 45 ft with the LB quad, and dipoles in the trees for 40, 80, and 160. I had a very modest SO2R station with a 756 Pro2 and FT-1000MP. HOWEVER, this was only a TEMPORARY station! From 2005 until May 2008, I had been gathering pieces and parts toward the goal of becoming a little less modest. In other words, I want to upgrade my little water pistol to a small BB pistol. I had gathered 5 large HF antennas, 190 ft of Rohn 55, several thousand feet of hardline and coax, StackMatches, SixPacks, tranceivers, etc, etc. But how to best utilize it all? With a large investment of time and study of terrain, antenna modeling and so forth, I began the design of the station in June 2007. There were many learning curves (sometimes feeling like brick walls or cliffs!), and some back-tracking as well. By July of 2008, everything was in place to begin erecting TOWER #1 and the associated control & RF cabling. The tower was erected in September 2008 and then stood naked until May 2009. However, there was much work going on during that time. Conduit was run, my telco pedastal cabinet was modified and installed and the switching shed was built next to the shack. Hardware was gathered, antenna mounts were built, hardline was cut to length and installed in the conduit. I also had to make 11 identical phasing lines 125 feet long to feed the future stack on the tower. My Force 12 C-31XR was still on the tower at K5ER; we took it down and replaced it with my KLM KT-36XA. Then I had to reassemble the three huge Force 12 antennas, test and tune them in preparation of their installation. We held the major (perhaps first?) antenna party in May 2009, successfully installing the stack of Force 12 C-51XR and C-31XR. There are several pictures of the install in my photo album. Less than 3 weeks later, during May 2009 the station suffered a lighting strike via the AC power mains. It pretty much destroyed all my equipment. Working with my homeowner's insurance, most was repaired or replaced by early August. NAQP was the first contest utilizing the new antenna system. THE CURRENT STATION as of 17 May 2010 SO2R with microHAM MK2R+ A pair of FT-1000MP, both fully loaded with filters and Inrad mods, included roofing filter. Both rigs use ICE 419B bandpass filters Antenna switching via ArraySolutions SixPack and StackMatches x 4 Antenna available at both rigs: 160 meter dipole at 105 ft 80 meter dipole at 75 ft 40 meters 2/2 at 116/52 ft 20 meters 3/3/3 at 116/85/52 ft 15 meters 4/4/4 at 116/85/52 ft 10 meters 7/7/7 at 116/85/52 ft Left rig => AL-1500 Right rig => AL-811 Mult station IC-756Pro2 Lightning Bolt quad for 10/15/20 meters at 45 ft on Tower #3 Etc ... From 2005 until May 2008, I had been gathering pieces and parts toward the goal of becoming a little less modest. In other words, I want to upgrade my little water pistol to a small BB pistol. Here's the list of what I'd gathered. Many of them are now inservice in the new shack or on the first of two new towers. Tranceivers: #1-Yaesu FT-1000MP, fully loaded with filters and Inrad mods, included roofing filter Ameritron AL-1500 on transceiver #1 #2-Yaesu FT-1000MP, fully loaded with filters and Inrad mods, included roofing filter #3-Icom IC-756ProII, with Inrad roofing filter Antenna and bandpass filter switching is accomplished via: (2) TopTen Band Decoders with both source and sink drivers (2) ICE 419 bandpass filters (1) SixPack 2x6 Other items acquired that are on hand: (2) Tic Ring Rotors model 1022D were acquired 2/23/2010 An additional 70 feet of Rohn 55G for future Tower #2 with associated EHS and guy hardware (1) KLM KT36XA (as of 05/02/09, on tower at K5ER as a loaner) (1) M2 KT34XA 2nd & 3rd SixPack 5th & 6th StackMatch Ameritron AL-811 Over 2,100 feet of 1/2" Andrews hardline Over 2,000 feet of 1/2" Commscope hardline 20 ground rods, 10 feet by 5/8" 3 large NEMA electrical/grounding boxes for weatherproof enclosures Multiple beverage receiving antenna, with transformers based on ON4UN design. 5,500 feet of 12 AWG for radials 1,000 feet of direct-bury RG-6 to bring beverages back to antenna switching shed Vacuum variable capacitors to shunt feed Tower #1 | 
