Stan’s folks homesteaded a five-acre parcel on the Mojave Desert in 1954, and built their original cabin three years later. At that time the nearest telephone was twenty-six miles away. So along with several other property owners, they became licensed CBers. But a CB radio’s range is limited. Stan and his dad decided to become licensed hams.

Together they studied, learned the Morse Code, took the FCC examination, and became licensed as Novice Class operators WN6BLK and WN6WFI. Soon Stan worked his way to an Advanced Class ticket, and with that the N became B. Along with his new privileges, Stan’s call was changed to WB6WFI. His dad quickly followed suit, and became WA6BLK.

Stan’s call sign changed again in 1974 when he upgraded to Extra Class, where it remains today as AA6SC. He and Dixie were married in 1992, and she holds the call N6TOH. Together they maintain their ham station in the same desert abode that was obtained from the BLM and homesteaded by the family in 1954.

A long wire antenna covers the HF range from 160 through ten meters, including the WARC bands. Desert winds can be rough on an antenna. Thirty years ago Stan and his dad had various mono-band dipoles, an inverted V, and even a tri-band Yagi-Uda beam up, all of which eventually blew down. Until recently the long wire antenna replaced them.

As one might expect, the long wire is resonant at only one frequency. So Dixie and Stan use a tuner to accommodate band and frequency changes. This is a compromise in effec­tiveness when com­pared to more elaborate antenna arrays, but wind loading is low, and if the long wire does break or blow down, it is relatively easy to repair.

During February of 2008, Stan and Dixie added an NVIS (Near-Vertical Incidence Skywave) an­tenna to supplement the long wire. The NVIS array is a broad-band folded dipole, cover­ing the fre­quencies from 3 to 30 MHz. As its name suggests, it is designed to radiate vertically, and provides continuous coverage out to ap­proximately 400 miles with no skip zone. Some hams call these “cloud burners.” Unlike conven­tional ham antennæ, an NVIS is mounted close to the Earth. This one is slightly more than 20 feet above the desert floor.

An 80-meter inverted V dipole and a 40-20-meter CCD inverted V dipole were added in November of 2010, significantly improving the station’s range with its transmission and reception capabilities. CCD stands for Controlled Current Distribution. Such an antenna is designed with series capacitors distributed along its length on special printed circuit boards.

Stan and Dixie brought down the Gizmotchy 11-meter beam from the garage attic in June of 2011 and reassembled it to its 1968 glory. Ten meters was starting to open up, and it took only a small amount of effort to shorten its elements from 27 to 28 MHz. Raised on a 15-foot pole with a new coaxial cable in place, PJ2/W6NN, Anna, on Curacao Island in the southern Caribbean Sea was contacted almost immediately. Japanese stations are also strong. Eventually the Gizmotchy will be reinstalled on the pole where it served well as a CB antenna during the sixties.

April, 1962: The west bedrooms might not have received their final coat of yellow stucco,
but a Yagi-Uda beam antenna was up for CB. Two-way radio had come to Johnson Valley.

The family owned this 1931 Model A Ford that performed well in soft sand.

The first Citizen’s Band equipment consisted of a pair of Heathkit transceivers. They worked well.

A Gizmotchy antenna also was used for CB in 1962. Amateur Radio would arrive five years later.

Recently this antenna was retuned to resonate in the ten-meter band and put back into service.

Concrete for the Ham Shack slab and walkway was delivered in March of 1967.

Terry DuMond looks on as his dad Richard guides concrete into the footing and Stan swings the chute.

Friend and neighbor Richard DuMond and Stan troweled down the mud.

The crew relaxed for a while, but only until the concrete hardened.

The Ham Shack was framed. Richard DuMond and Stan’s dad nailed down the shingles.

Roofed, wrapped, insulated, inspected, and readied for stucco.

Richard and Stan applied the first coat of stucco.

Station WB6WFI during the early 1970s. A Hallicrafters SR-42 two-meter AM rig was at the right.

The station’s first Teletype, a surplus Model 26 that had been used by the Bell System.

The station’s second teleprinter, a Western Union Model 103, with tape-perforating equipment.

THE VHF RTTY STATION — Electronic teletext keyboards with video displays
were the beginning of the end for electromechanical teleprinter machines.

M28ASR—A Model 28 Automatic Send-Receive Teletype was the station workhorse,
operating at 60 words per minute in Baudot code. This model was coveted by hams.

M35ASR—Successor to the M28ASR, the Model 35 Automatic Send-Receive could run at
100 words per minute, and used the ASCII standard, which included additional characters.

One of Stan’s sons came into the shack to ask, “Dad, do you know you’re burning the palm tree?”

A frond growing large enough to contact the end of the 80-meter inverted V had not been noticed.

The original Novice station with the transmitter built from plans in the 1967 ARRL Handbook.

A close-up of the transmitter taken forty-three years later, in 2010.

The U.S. Navy surplus RBC receiver worked well. Eventually Stan purchased a Hallicrafters
Cyclone transceiver to replace both the home-brew transmitter and the 82-pound receiver.

CB transceivers remained in operation on the gray steel cabinet to the right. This kept us in touch with neighbors for everyone’s convenience and necessity in case of emergency. Once residential telephone service arrived in Johnson Valley during the seventies, Citizens Band was relegated almost into oblivion.

The Hallicrafters SR-400 Cyclone HF transceiver covered 80 through 10 meters.

Every ham radio operator is required to have a seven-foot equipment rack at some point, right?
Ours contained a frequency counter, the RBC receiver, and a CV-89 URA-8A RTTY demodulator.

It was during these years that Stan and his dad maintained an antenna farm.

The Yagi beam installation took place on a memorable day, but eventually it blew down.

A snow fall in February of 1968.

Station AA6SC/N6TOH as it is today, featuring a Yaesu FT-950.

The long wire antenna, almost invisible in this photo, is suspended between the two utility poles.

EMBELLISHED—This image has been altered in Photoshop to show the long wire’s positioning.
In reality the horizontal section sags. The two-meter Ringo Ranger can be seen near the center.

The long wire’s east end passes through an insulator at the top of the utility pole, then drops
to one terminal of a balun. The counterpoise is attached to the balun’s opposite terminal.

A view from the south showing the relative position of the long wire poles and the power pole.
See an enlarged version of this image.

The new (February 2008) NVIS antenna can be seen in the foreground.

November, 2010—The eighty-meter dipole with green insulation is at the top. The NVIS folded dipole with parallel dark wires is in the center. The forty-twenty-meter CCD with circuit boards along its length is at the bottom. The antennæ are spread horizontally so that they are not directly above or below one another. View the photo above this one to get an idea of how far apart the wires are positioned.

A bundle of coaxial cables connects the station to its antennæ.