K6MJD Mark J. Dossett San Diego, CA QCWA # 37352 Chapter 14

THE RADIO GEEK

Mark was first licensed as KC6UHD in 1991. He was active with the East County Repeater Association (ECRA) and with the now defunct California Microwave Relay Association (CMRA) 1.2 GHz statewide linked repeater system.

In 1998, he applied for and was issued the vanity call K6MJD. Shortly thereafter, Mark experienced .radio burnout. and all but disappeared from the airwaves until 2003 when he got bit by the radio bug again.

On 01 October 2005, with a little encouragement from the infamous Art Bell (W6OBB) and his friends, Mark passed the Element 1 (Morse code test). He then took and passed the Element 3 (written theory exam) upgrading his ticket to General. After about six months of additional studying, he passed the Element 4 Extra Class exam on 15 April 2006. With no additional test to take, there was much rejoicing [insert Snoopy dance here].

Mark also has served as a Volunteer Examiner (VE) with SANDARC and the ARRL. He is generally active on 75 meters. He (Mark) would like to point out that, "you can sometimes find me on the Little People Net, 3.680 MHz LSB, weekends (very, very late at night)." But, it.s hard to say where he will turn up these days, but it.s most likely going to be on HF. somewhere (maybe even 3.870 AM).

Lately, he has been enjoying radios that glow in the dark, also known as boat anchors. There's just something magical about vaccum tubes!

Ham radio station K6MJD is comprised of an Icom 756PROII, Collins KWM-2, E.F. Johnson Viking Ranger, Heil PR40 Microphone, Astatic D-104 Mic, APHEX 230 Master Voice Channel Processor, W2IHY EQplus and 8 Band Audio Equilizer, MACKIE 802-VLZ3 Mic/Line Mixer, W2IHY iBox Variable Attenuator and Interface, and a Palstar AT5K Antenna Tuner. The current antennas are a DX Engineering DXE-MBVE-43 foot (13.1064 meters) 160m-10m multiband vertical and an inverted V cut for 80 meters installed NVIS style up about 32 feet at the apex. Oh, and several boat anchor radios.

I thought it was interesting how similar the cover shot of the July 2014 Electric Radio Magazine was to my own AM station. The transmitter is a K7DYY Super Senior (bottom), with an AIR corp Pro Announcer 500 PH Speech Processor, Drake R8B receiver, and a Collins 75A-4 receiver.

June 26, 2017