W6IWI, Tucson AZ

We moved from Arvada CO to Tucson AZ in 2021. An archive of the Colorado station is here. This page describes the current station in AZ.

The call letters W6IWI were first used by Kauko Hallikainen in the 1930s (1933 license, 1937 ARRL membership). See the 1934, 1936, 1937, and 1938 Amateur Radio Callbook. The 1930s QSL card was similar to that shown above (I may still have one of the originals somewhere). By 1952, the call had been reassigned to Carson Donaldson in Inglewood CA. He held it through 1977. I acquired the call in 2016. Prior to that, I held the call WA6FDN, and prior to that, WN6FDN. The WA6FDN license was first granted in 1969, with WN6FDN in 1968. WA6FDN shows up in the Summer 1969 Callbook. In December 1969, I took the exam for the First Class Radiotelephone License with Radar Endorsement at the FCC office in San Francisco. That license was later replaced by the FCC with the General Radiotelephone Operator's License. NL7XM offers a great service. He has over 100 years of Radio Amateur Callbooks and will find the first appearance of your callsign in the Callbook. For a reasonable cost, he'll provide certified copies of these pages verifying that the callsign was held by the particular person on this date. This is what he sent me for WN6FDN and WA6FDN.

WN6FDN started with a Heathkit DX-60 transmitter and a National NC-300 receiver running CW on HF. WA6FDN used a Viking Ranger transmitter running AM, CW, and RTTY on HF. RTTY used a Teletype model 15 printer (also see a slow motion video of a model 15 in operationg), and a model 14 typing reperf and transmitter distributor. W6IWI now uses an SEA 245 with a Dentron Clipperton-L amplifier running RTTY, CW and SSB into a Zero Five 30 Foot Flagpole Antenna. VHF and UHF FM are covered with a Baofeng UV-5R and a Wouxun KG-UV-6X. The Wouxun KG-UV-6X normally drives a Diamond X50A vertical antenna at home. Mobile info is here.

HF Station Details

• Teletype Model 15KSR Printer
• Teletype Model 14 Typing Reperf with keyboard
• Teletype Model 14 Transmitter Distributor
• Flesher TU-170
• Homebrew DSP Terminal Unit
• Seacom SEA245 HF Transceiver - Seacom SEA 245. This runs 150W CW or SSB between 1.6 MHz and 30 MHz.
• A - 1 meter of RG-8/U 50 ohm coax
• SEA 1630 antenna tuner
• B - 3 meters of RG-8/U 50 ohm coax
• Daiwa 501H HF/VHF cross needle watt meter. This meter monitors the power into the Dentron Clipperton-L Amplifier.
• B - 1 meters of RG-8/U 50 ohm coax.
• Dentron Clipperton-L Amplifier - A 1 kW grounded grid linear amplifier using four 572B triodes.
• C - 1 meter RG-8/U 50 ohm coax
• Daiwa 501H HF/VHF cross needle watt meter. This meter measures the amplifier output power and the reflected power from the selected antenna.
• D - 1 meter RG-8/U 50 ohm coax
• E - 10 meters RG-8/U 50 ohm coax
• MFJ-998-RT
• Inverted L Antenna - Previous temporary antenna
• Zero Five 30 Foot Flagpole Antenna
• Instructograph Morse Code training machine in collection.

W6IWI HF Activity

The table below shows recent contacts logged on qrz.com.

RBN Report

The table below is generated by a PHP script that pulls JSON data from the Reverse Beacon Network, parses it, calculates distance and bearing based on latitude and longitude, then shows data for the last 100 spots. Frequency changes greater than 1 kHz or time changes greater than 1 hour are shown in bold. The Rx links link to the QRZ page for the station. The SNR links link to a graph of signal to noise ratio versus time for that receiver, mode (CW or RTTY), and band (data limited to 100 spots from RBN)

The background color is green if the distance is greater than 3,000 miles. The Relative Distance column has a * for every 200 miles.