VE6EI Joel A. Weder Calgary, AB Canada QCWA # 37007 Chapter 151

Received the 2 letter callsign back in early 2008. This call belonged to Gordon Crayford of Lacombe AB for many years. He passed away in early 2007. Gordon was a founding member of the Central Alberta Radio League. (CARL) My old call was VE6VOX, which I held from 1991 until the end of 2014.

I live in Calgary Alberta, though I sometimes travel to provide pre-sales support for the Trio Datacom industrial radio products my company builds/sells. My work takes me to places like Houston and Denver regularly, but sometimes to more exotic places like Amsterdam or Melbourne!

I have to admit that I spend more time on music these days than ham radio. I'm working on the acoustic guitar and am a singer as well, mostly bluegrass, folk, celtic and old rock stuff. Plus my XYL Sharon is a big part of my life! :o)

I work for Schneider Electric (ex Control Microsystems). My branch of the organization is a Melbourne based manufacturer of industrial data radios. I'm involved in RF system design (using Pathloss), training, sales support etc. Worked in the past for BP Amoco as a Control Systems Technologist, and before that for the Calgary Police Service for a couple of years.

I've been a ham since early 1991 and am currently active on HF and also do a little bit of VHF/UHF satellite work. Mostly a sideband operator, but also like some of the digital modes. (Why isn't Olivia more popular? JT-65 is ok but boring after awhile)

I had a Yaesu FT-990 (once my dream rig!) for years, but decided to get into the 21st century and acquired a used Flex-5000. Also have an FT-847 as a backup rig and to do satellite work. Just because I totally love the look of it, I acquired a Yaesu FT-107M with the power supply/speaker, phone patch, tuner and transverter!! I've also got a couple of older Icom rigs too - an IC-751A and an IC-720A. Also a Heathkit HW-9 and a Xiegu X108G portable rig.

Have been doing a lot of repair work on my rigs recently. Found the HW-9 at a fleamarket a couple of years ago. Added a DD-103 digital dial to it, then an RF gain control, a K16 keyer and display backlighting. After that, opened up my IC-720A and cleaned/repaired the band filter switch. Added an inductor & resistor to keep the contacts in better health for awhile. Then on to my IC-751A. Replaced all the capacitors on the display board and did a general clean-up. It runs very well now! I just finished replacing the Tx/Rx relay in my FT-107M. Also tried to replace the attenuator relay but those old things are almost impossible to find, so I cleaned the contacts with DeOxIt. Last project will be to add an X-Lock to the 107M to make the VFO more stable.

Main antennas here are an off-centre-fed dipole (peak around 35 feet) and a Traffie 5 band hexbeam on a roof-mount tower. Put up a pair of M2 eggbeaters this summer too, to help me get my feet wet playing with satellites.

I'm using Ham Radio Deluxe 6.0 for PSK31 and RTTY, and am even using LoTW and eQSL too. Totally into the 21st Century now!!

March 01, 2016