N8SMC heard around the world

My Name is Tom Causley and I have been a ham for 20 years. The radio you see above is a photo of my rig a Kenwood ts-570d and the Antenna is a 2 element hombrew yagi made out of wood and electrical conduit. Works excellent and have been using it for 20 years with out flaw. The only flaws I have had with any of my antennas is the cable ends corroding when water gets into them. Also up on the tower you will see a 2meter diamond antenna on the top and a dxcc 10 thru 80 meter inverted "V" a great antenna that has served me well over the years. If you click on the BUTTON above you will see a close look at the top of the tower.

I'll admit, I haven't been a good Ham the last 10 years. My HF rig quit working and I sent it away to be fixed to a guy in Ohio and he had the radios stacked up on his floor in his basement where his bench was. My radio a Kenwood 430 was ready to be worked on. He went away for a holiday weekend and a water pipe broke and the basement filled up with water. So my radio was underwater for who knows how long.

He did collect from the insurance company and he sent me a nice check so I was OK with it. I then bought the Kenwood TS 570d. A much nicer radio. But I never got to use it because when I hooked it up I found I had a short in my antenna so all I could do was listen. So I have been procrastinating about fixing it and ended up just puting all my equipment away for a while.

I am now getting back into it again and trying to get things all back together. So wish me luck and hopefully I will be back on the air in no time.