W3RGA's Homepage

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About

Hi, my name is Patrick Moyer, callsign W3RGA. Amateur radio has been a part of my life for more than 21 years. Most of my friends are ham's and it has added to my life greatly.

In the 90's, As a teenager I was on CB and a scanner listener. I would ride my bike to the local bookstore to get the latest issue of Popular Communications.

April of 2003, I was licensed as KB3JKV and was active on 2M FM.

Around 2007, I became interested in weak signal VHF with a big focus on 6M. I also began teaching myself morse code so I could work more DX on 6M.

June of 2008, I upgraded to General.

August of 2008, I received my W3RGA vanity call.

Fall of 2010, I put up a 20' piece of wire and made my first HF contacts.

Spring of 2011, I got interested in RTTY and it became my favorite made for awhile.

In 2014, I got interested in APRS and packet radio for a bit.

October of 2016, I put up 40M dipole at 15' to operate in the PA QSO party, this got me interested in HF contesting.

In 2017, I was asked to join the Frankford Radio Club.

Summer of 2018, I upgraded to my current 125' doublet at 35' hoping to reach BIG gun status.

Today, HF contesting is still my focus but it's getting harder to find the time and energy to dedicate to any serious efforts.


Station

I keep it simple with just 100 watts and a wire.

Transceiver
Elecraft K3S transceiver
Elecraft P3 panadapter
Bose QuietComfort headphones
Antlion Audio ModMic Uni
TX Antenna
DXE-TFK46-HD fiberglass mast using KF7P anchor stakes
True Ladder Line 125' doublet, inverted V @ 35'
100' of 600Ω open wire ladder line
Balun Designs Model 4116 4:1 Hybrid Balun
LDG RT-100 remote antenna tuner
Balun Designs Model 1115 isolation baluns at each end of a 50' run of LMR-400
RX Antenna
W6LVP Magnetic Loop mounted on the side of a tree 4' off the ground.
DXE -RXFC-75 receive feedline chokes at each end of a 200' run of quad shield RG-6
DLW Associates high pass filter
Low Band Systems low pass filter
Balun Designs Model 1116d isolation balun
Mini-Circuits zsc-2-2+ splitter
SDR Receiver
Red Pitaya SDRlab 122-16 that shares my W6LVP Magnetic Loop
See the RBN Node section below for more information
Accessories
Samlex SEC-1235 14V supply
RIGrunner 4007U DC outlet panel
KMTronic WEB Relay board
Every cable in the shack has multiple mix 31 ferrites on it
All of the coax jumpers in the shack are DXE RG-400
Computer
GEEKOM IT Series, Windows 11 Pro, Intel i7-11390H, 16GB RAM
BenQ EX2780Q, 27", 1440P, IPS monitor
Keychron K3 ver. 2, 75% usb keyboard
Logitech Signature M650, wireless mouse
N1MM Logger+ for contest logging
N3FJP's AC Log for general logging and award tracking
2Tone RTTY encoder/decoder
GRITTY RTTY decoder
CC User telnet DX cluster client, Ver. 3
ViewProp with DX Atlas
Morse Runner Community Edition

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QTH

I moved into my current Snydertown QTH in September of 2003. It's a quiet little borough in Northumberland county with less than 400 residents.

I didn't give ham radio any thought when I purchased this home. It is located in a valley 200' below the average terrain and the backyard is only 30'x100'.

Recently I've been seeing a large increase in the number of unsolvable RF noise sources.

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Activity

I mostly operate in contests and enjoy CW, RTTY and a little SSB.

See my current QSO totals. See some of my contest scores.

hamalert

activity/image/W3RGA


QSL

I no longer send paper cards, please QSL via the ARRL's Logbook of The World.

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Member of

ARRL-Logo-1024x513.png American Radio Relay League.

FRC.png Frankford Radio Club.

logo-transparent-2000.png CW Operators Club.

svarclogo.jpg Susquehanna Valley Amateur Radio Club.

CW-Club-circle-logo400-150x150.jpg Long Island CW Club.


RBN Node rbn.png

Node is spotting CW on all bands 160M through 10M as well as RTTY during contests. See the last 100 stations it has spotted.

Hardware
Red Pitaya SDRlab 122-16 that shares my W6LVP Magnetic Loop
acrylic case with a 30mm fan
Bel Power HC5-6/OVP-AG 5V linear supply
Firmware
Pavel Demin's SD card image
Software (running on my station computer)
VE3NEA's CW Skimmer & RTTY Skimmer
K3IT's HermesIntf
W3OA's Aggregator
CWSL

N6TV's great presentation CW/RTTY Skimmer & the RBN

Visit the Reverse Beacon Network website www.reversebeacon.net

For a good source of telnet RBN spots give my DX Cluster Node a try.


Contact Info

Email: [email protected]

Cell: (570) 975-5283

Zoom: My permanent room

Follow me on X: @W3RGA