Ken Harker WM5R
2000 ARRL International DX Contest, Phone, N5CQ M/S

John Langdon N5CQ (click for more photos.)

John N5CQ has built a world-class Amateur Radio DXing station in the hills west-southwest of Austin, TX. He invited some members of the Central Texas DX & Contest Club (CTDXCC) to come out and operate in the 2000 ARRL International DX Contest, phone, as a Multiple Operator, Single Transmitter (M/S) operation. I spent the entire weekend at the station.

N5CQ tries to cover all the angles and all the bands on a single tower with a stack of six Force 12 tribanders on Rohn 55G rotated with RTS components. Three pairs are fed with 3 "Mini Stack Match" transformers and a Stack Match control unit on 20, 15 and 10 meters, allowing selection of any pair, any two pairs, or all three pairs. Three of the antennas are C3's (at 35, 95, and 125 feet) and three are C4XL's (at 65, 125, and 195 feet). The three C4XL's also incorporate interlaced 2 element "shorty forty" sections which are fed with separate feed lines and another Stack Match. Also on the tower are a WARC-7 beam for 30, 17, and 12 meters at about 105 feet, a 2 element linear loaded 80M Force 12 Magnum 280C at 185 feet, and a 160M sloper.

As if this were not enough, John has recently added a second "multiplier" tower to his station. On fifty feet of Rohn 55G, John has a Force 12 C-4XL fixed on South America and the Caribbean at 30 feet, and a C-51XR tribander (with two elements on forty meters) and a Force 12 50MHz beam on a rotor at the tower top. For receiving antennas, John has two beverages, each about 580 feet long, pointed at Europe and Japan. The beverages work great on 160M, 80 M, and 40M, and have reportedly even been useful on 20M, 15M, and 10M on a few occasions.