Welcome to my Website. My name is Eddie Pierce, and I live in Moorpark, California.  Moorpark is a small bedroom community located in the eastern part of Ventura County in Grid Square DM04NG. I've been a ham for 32 years and have participated in many aspects of our great hobby. As of last year (2006) I've discovered the Six Meter Band. Wow, what a blast. As I've mentioned above, I've been licensed for quite some time and am now just getting into Six Meters.

I am an avid DXer and am always looking for a new one on the bands. My station consists of a Yaesu  FT1000D, a Heath SB200 amp, and the antenna is a small Hybrid Quad by TGM Communications (see my photo gallery) that I rotate with a TV rotor, a 40 Meter Dipole. My station also includes the Westmountain Radio Rigblaster Plus interface or a Timewave PK232MBX/DSP-Sound Card combo.

I retired (April 1, 2005) from a  major Aerospace company in Los Angeles as an Antenna Tech specializing in Planar/Slotted arrays. I started my career testing wave guides built by our company and then performing high power testing of those wave guides at up to 10,000 watts CW in the X Band range of radar. The assemblies are very warm after testing is complete. Now you talk about magic, that is how microwave assemblies work (F...... Magic). My commute to work was around 58 miles each way and I operated on the VHF-UHF bands with my Kenwood TM742a on 144, 220, 440 bands. I am usually monitoring the CalNet system on the UHF band.

My portable station is one I enjoy to operate when out doing Field Day, a visit to the park, or especially the weekend campout to our favorite place, either in Ventura County or Santa Barbara County. My station consists of a Yaesu FT-897D/AT-897 Tuner, Westmountain Radio PNP Interface (for the various digital modes), a 43 watt solar panel and deep cycle battery. Oh, don't let me forget one of two antennas that I prefer to use. The tape dipole by Hygain or the Ventenna Company  Dipole. I've had great fun and this is an easy station to setup. During field day 2004 I used the tape dipole extended for 20 meters and was able to use it on 40 meters also with the help of the AT-897 tuner attached to the FT-897D.

TOO MUCH FUN - Well after 32 plus years of being licensed, I've discovered the Magic Band (Six Meters that is) What a blast I am having chasing grid squares. I discovered the band quite by accident. I was testing out, my small HF Hybrid quad on some of the local six meter repeaters and bumped the home button and it put me on 52.525, and I heard a couple of my friends in the next town over shooting the breeze and I joined in. Well, about a half hour into the qso, a guy breaks in from Colorado and said that he had been listening to us chatting about cameras and just had to say "Hello". Well, I had to pick myself up off of the floor. What a surprise. Needless to say, I am hooked. Now I spend a lot of time listening on 50.125. One last comment about working six meters, is that I am finding out that many ops on that band don't like to QSL and I am not sure why? My feeling is that if you call or answer a cq and you receive a card why not send a card back? That is just my feeling about QSLing for that band. On the low bands, everyone does a great job of QSLing when the time arises.

My wife, Marie, KE6NDP (News Flash - She just retired after 38 years with the Telephone Company) and I were blessed with a beautiful granddaughter (Alyssa) seven years ago and she goes to the local public school and I help assist in her class regularly (Second Grade), assisting the teacher with some of the repetitive chores that occur on a daily basis. Marie is teaching her how to Crochet and I am spending my time with her doing homework, going to the park with her friends from class, teaching her how to ride a bicycle, and watching her jump rope like crazy. Her brother Jesse (he's 12 years old) enjoys Pokemon, Gameboy playing, and visiting with his uncles. Maverick (2 years old Jan. 1st) has a brother (Marcus) who was recently born  this past September 20. Gee, Maverick will have a little brother to ride bikes and play baseball with...Too FUN.

LATEST UPDATE - I would like everyone to know that I am now using LoTW (Logbook of The World) I hope a lot of you have decided to give LoTW a go. It can be linked to your DXCC information. It is good way to get confirmations to your QSO's without having to chase the paper cards and going through the many no replies. So if you have not tried LoTW give it a go. There are many US and DX stations using the DATABASE. I now have DXCC serial No. 40382. I want to thank all of you that I worked and to say thanks for replying to my cards. I hope to work you many times in the future.

One last thing, if any of you have any questions about my exploits or either of my stations, feel free to drop me a note here by sending it to kq6k at hotmail.com. When you send me an e-mail drop the "at" and replace it with the @ sign. Hope to hear from you.

Tnx es 73 -- Eddie