The Nashua Area Radio Society recently had the opportunity to visit Matt Strelow, KC1XX’s station in Mason, NH. Matt has assembled one of the top contest stations in the world along with a very skilled set of operators.
Matt and some of his team members spent an afternoon with us helping us learn about how a world-class multi-multi contest station is built and operated.
KC1XX Antenna Farm
Our tour of the KC1XX Contest Station began with the antenna farm. Matt’s station is located on top of Hurricane Hill in Mason, NH, and sports some very impressive antenna hardware. Bob, WA1Z gave us a great overview of the impressive antenna hardware at Matt’s station. Matt has a total of 13 towers which include stacks of yagis on many of the HF bands.
The photo above shows the 40m stack at KC1XX. This tower has two 40m, 4 element full-size yagis in a stack. The entire tower rotates at the base. As is the case with most of Matt’s towers, this one also includes antennas for other bands (in this case 6m and above).
It takes some heavy-duty hardware to rotate an entire tower. The photo above shows the rotator at the base of one of Matt’s rotatable towers. Rotatable towers are a great way to turn stacks of yagis which are fixed in the same direction on the same tower.
Matt’s largest tower holds a pair of 80m delta loops that create an 80m directional antenna. A two-element loop antenna is equivalent in performance to a 3 element yagi. This tower is 300 ft tall, is painted red and white and has a flashing beacon at the top! The “booms” that support the element for Matt’s 80m directional antenna are made from a pair of tower sections that are mounted horizontally on this tower.
Matt’s station has many antennas and all of the associated feedlines converge in a small building that houses a patch panel, remote antenna switches and supporting gear.
KC1XX Station
Matt’s “shack” is equally impressive. His station arranged in a multi-multi configuration with dedicated radios and operating positions for each band and major contest direction.
The antenna controls for the station are centrally located in Matt’s station. The antenna control system at KC1XX includes many antenna rotator boxes, antenna switches, and related controls. Centralized antenna controls allow all of the antennas to configured from one place in a way that best supports the band and contest conditions at any given time.
The Best Part of All
The best part of our visit was the time that Matt and his team spent with us talking about Amateur Radio and contesting. The photo above shows Dave, KM3T who is one of Matt’s team members explaining the station as everyone looks on. Dave is also a NARS member and it was great that he was able to join in our visit.
Matt created a really cool Amateur Radio quiz that we all did. It included questions involving recognizing call signs, propagation, and other areas of Amateur Radio operating.
We all really enjoyed the visit and we especially appreciate all of the time that Matt and his team spent getting to know us and sharing stories about everyone’s Amateur Radio experiences. We very much appreciate Matt’s and his team’s willingness to spend time with us sharing their knowledge and experience.
Fred, AB1OC