Palm Springs Amateur Golf Tournament January 7-10, 2009 : Palm Springs Amateur Golf Tournament Site
This is the official Web Page of W6EEN Memorial Contest Radio.
NE6N is the call of the
Desert Radio Contesters
W6EEN(SK), K6XC, KA6SAR, W6ORD, KI7WX, N5OT,W6AQ
and the rest of the gang
Don Doughty, W6EEN was a Ham Radio Operator since 1951. He retired to Bermuda Dunes, CA (in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs).
He really enjoyed his retirement and lived his dream of building and operating a World Class Contest Station.
Don's favorite Contest was the California QSO Party.
W6EEN Contest Radio Story :
General: Don placed a deposit on his 4 plus acre Bermuda Dunes site in April 1989 and immediately filed with the Riverside County planning department for a variance. About $5,000 and 18 months later, the Board of Supervisors passed his variance and then he started working with the Building Department for the actual permits. Many wet signed calculations later he had his permits in the Spring of 1991 and started pouring anchors and foundations for 4 towers. The towers, designed to withstand 129 mph winds and an 8.0 magnitude earthquake were assembled on the ground complete with rotators and poles, and then stood up one Sunday morning with the help of a sign crane and about 10 local hams to tie off, etc., all the loose guys.Don then started burying feedlines and control cables and gradually got all 4 antennae up.
Before purchasing this site, Don looked at many ranches and Date Groves further out with an eye to 40 plus acres, maybe up to several hundred. But considerations of View, security, travel time to hospitals and available houses, kept him from getting serious. However, after finding the current location, checking out the up angles toward europe, listening for local noise at several different times of day, meeting with the neighbor and talking to the planning department convinced Don to go ahead with the contingent deposit.
The Antennae:
Ten Meters - 10 Meter Stack (6x6x6) at 38 feet, 74 feet and 110 feet.
15 meters - 15 Meter Stack (6x6) at 35 feet and 85 feet.
20 meters - 20 Meter Stack (6x6) at 50 and 115 feet.
40 meters - 4 element rotary at 103 feet with plans for a fixed 2 el on JA/Carib.
80 meters - 3 element rotary at 110 feet plus 2 dipoles.
160 meters - Vertical "T". Future plans for 4 square array.
14 - 30 Mhz log periodic at 60 feet and other various and sundry wires.
Don did considerable computer modeling as well as experimentation that has resulted in the antennae playing quite well.
The Feedlines: W6EEN had nine hardlines coming into the shack and various other coax lines for the antenna setup. Don used stack switches on 10, 15 and 20 meters for the side mounts. The hardline was 1/2" copper for 10 through 40 meters and the log periodic plus 1/2" aluminum hardline for 80 and 160 meters. He buried about 11,000 feet of multiconductor wire and 3500 feet of hardline.
The radios and other gear: W6EEN used Heil headsets/mikes, Vomax speech processors, Kenwood 950's, Alpha 87a amplifiers, high level scopes and manual switching of antennae. ICE filters were added to the Kenwood radios and they make a big difference. Also there are about $500 worth of ferrites in the system to quiet everything down.There is no intermod! The radios are ran with computers and a special switching arrangement for 2 radio contesting. Ct and TR contest logging programs were used depending on the contest and mode (and number of operators). There were interlocks and headphone switching as required. The station ran single op, multi single, multi-two and occasionally multi multi. The W6EEN packetcluster node was located there with a 440 mhz path back to W6KK via a Snow Peak X1J node.
Click here for pictures of the station and operators
Here is a discussion of how to design, build and tune up a 160m or 80 m foursquare ant: 4 Square Presentation by K1KI
Ron, K6XC (left) and Don, W6EEN, (right) at Visalia DX Convention, May 1998:
73, OM Don. See you in the big contest in the sky.
This page was last updated January, 25, 2010
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