The N4BE Amateur Radio and Vintage Electronics Site
Welcome the N4BE amateur radio site, located on the Space Coast in Melbourne Village, FL.
About
background
I attended Clemson University and received the MSEE (MS Electrical Engineering) degree in 1972. I then moved to Florida to work as an engineer for an electronics and communication systems company in Melbourne, FL
WA4UYT, 1960's, Rome, GA.
My main hobby is Amateur (Ham) radio, which this website is about. My current FCC callsign is N4BE. I started in the hobby in the 1960s with the call sign WA4UYT (the black & white photo).
N4BE (Jim), nov. 2022, melbourne, fl
Time changes things. Within the radio hobby, my main interests over the years have been HF (high frequency) radio digital communications in addition to Morse (CW). The digital comms focus began as an interest in RTTY (radioteletype/FSK comms) after Army MARS deposited a surplus model 19 teletype machine on my parents' driveway in Rome, GA. Thereafter, this led to building a tube-based FSK demodulator from the 1960's ARRL handbook schematics. It's been an obsession ever since, as can be seen in some of the equipment in the photo below. Check out my QRZ.com page https://www.qrz.com/db/N4BE
The shack
This is the radio shack / workshop (second floor)
OCF ANTENNA
MY BASIC ANTENNA
BUCKMASTER OFF-CENTER-FED ANTENNA
BUCKMASTER OFF-CENTER-FED ANTENNA
Most people show a large antenna system, but I use an off-center-fed (OCF) antenna by Buckmaster. It's a sad looking thing hiding up in the trees, but it works extremely well for me on multiple bands.
BUCKMASTER OFF-CENTER-FED ANTENNA
BUCKMASTER OFF-CENTER-FED ANTENNA
BUCKMASTER OFF-CENTER-FED ANTENNA
The Buckmaster 7-Band antennas cover 80, 40, 20, 17, 12, 10, and 6 meters, with no tuner required! Wire antennas are a great simple way to work 40M and 80M rather than a noisy vertical antenna that requires horizontal radials. The 7-Band antennas are OCF (off-center-fed), with a 45 foot leg and a 90 foot leg, totaling 135 feet. With the middle at 30 feet and the ends at 10 feet the 7-Band antenna requires about 120 feet of ground space.