WT4Y

Greetings fellow Amateur Radio Operators. I am Gary Griffin, WT4Y. I live in Pasco County, Florida in a community with a HOA that restricts antennas (never again). This web site was created primarily as an operating aid for me.

I've been a Ham since early 1972. I received my Novice class license, WN4ZCM, and passed my Advanced class test before the Novice license arrived in the mail. I operated WN4ZCM for a few weeks using a homegrew crystal controlled transmitter powered by a horizontal sweep tube from a television. Power output was a whopping 8 watts. My antenna was a folded dipole made from 300 ohm TV feed line nailed to the top of fence posts. My receiver was a Hallicrafters HQ-129X. I used the same setup for a few weeks using my Advanced callsign WB4ZCM. Back in those days, you could only take the Extra test after operating two years as a General or above. In June of 1972 I entered the US Air Force and was QRT for the most part until I was stationed in West Berlin at Flughafen Tempelhof. In Berlin I operated using the callsign DA1QU. After Berlin I was stationed at Fortuna AFS, North Dakota and made a few contacts using WB4ZCM/0. After returning to civilian life in Georgia and after making only a few contacts with my Heathkit HW101, all my equipment was stolen in a house burglary. I was QRT until I got married and moved to North Carolina and later South Carolina. In Charleston, SC I upgraded to Extra and received the callsign AC4PL. I changed callsigns when I moved to Utah and again when I moved to Florida and finally got the vanity callsign WT4Y and became active again.

My current setup is just a TS-440S into a SG-239 antenna tuner hooked to a random piece of wire strung out over a swamp behind my back yard. I recently had the great idea to wade out into the swamp to inspect my antenna, but stopped short when I saw a critter that was at least 5 feet long and 8 inches in diameter slithering through the water. The creature was either a small alligator or a big ass water moccasin. Whatever it was, I decided to inspect the antenna some other time. Even though the setup is rather modest, I've managed to work over 100 countries and confirm all 50 states. The photo on the left is my SGC SG-239 Smartuner protected from the weather by an ammo can. On top of the ammo can is one of the local friendly lizards which populate the area.



Update: Recently I took an old (1991) Cushcraft R7 Vertical down from the attic and decided to try and deploy it next to the swamp while avoiding detection by the neighbors. I took everything apart and using sandpaper, steel wool, a wire brush on a grinder and a dremel tool, I cleaned every square inch. I put the antenna back together using corrosion inhibitor for aluminum. I cleaned the exposed surfaces first with mineral spirits, then alcohol and finally vinegar. After the vinegar I wiped it down with a clean rag and sprayed all the bright surfaces with a flat black paint. When the neighbors weren't looking, I took it into the swamp and mounted it on a 4x4 post with a piece of 1 1/2 inch electrical conduit. The flat black paint did the trick because this thing is absolutely invisible to the neighbors. Click on the first Stealth R7 photo and see if you can spot the antenna then click on the second photo for a little help.

One of my projects is to computerize my logs dating back to 1972. WT4Y is current and WN4ZCM, DA1QU, WB4ZCM/0, WB4ZCM and AC4PL are complete. A feature I've recently added shows the callsign in a lighter color if there's a QSL card on file. If you hover over the callsign with the mouse pointer, a popup windows shows a preview of the QSL card. If you click on the callsign, the QSL card is displayed full size. You must enable popup windows to see the preview.

Select "QSO Query" to view and query my logs and display QSL cards. The PHP code I wrote to generate the "QSO Query" page is available to all who ask. My email address can be found on QRZ.com.

The "Server Setup" page consists mainly of notes on my UBUNTU web server install and configuration in case I have to rebuild my server. I'm currently running 4 web sites on this server.