Radio telegraphy has turned out to be very rewarding not only in the self gratification from learning to send and receive International Morse but also, and primarily, in belonging to a large group of radio amateur operators who equally enjoy and work to preserve this fundamental mode of radio communications. CW has become the primary mode.

After the first five years I am now more thrilled by every opportunity of the Amateur Radio hobby from studying and building antennas and radio equipment to new skills like net procedures, fast DX exchanges and, especially, the art arm-chair rag chewing.

The station has continuously evolved and now includes portable gear, several active QRP rigs including home brew SDR and now a QRO all band HF amplifier.

As for keys, I enjoy using any type including sideswiper, bug, straight key and paddles. It takes practice but it is absolutely possible to learn to use them all and have the ability to move from one type to another.

Favorite activities are CW rag chewing and restoring and using old keys. Below are some of the station keys currently in use.

Current radio interests are antennas and the science of Transmission Line Transformers. The TLT shown below is an efficient 1 to 9 Guanella BALUN for connecting the rig thru a balanced feedline to a full wave 80 meter horizontal loop antenna hanging from several pine trees. With this BALUN, the rig's built-in ATU easily tunes all HF bands. QRP operation with this BALUN has been excellent and the BALUN is adequate for high power use as well. The windings are made of PVC insulated solid Cu #18 AWG which is slid into 1/8" OD x 1/16" ID PVC tubing. Three separate transformers are each wound using 7-bifilar turns onto three stacked FT-140-61 ferrite cores. The three transformers are then wired parallel / series, Guanella fashion, to achieve the desired 1:9 impedance transformer. Intrinsic line impedance is close to 150 ohms, which is optimum for a 50 to 450 ohm TLT. The feedline has recently been changed from 450 twin-lead to 3" open wire ladder-line, about 600 ohms. The BALUN has now been used up to 750w with no sign of heating on HF bands to 6m.

Other interests include cooking, gardening, writing, programming and photography.

Very best 73,

Bill / Will, W4HEX