VE3BA-BRANTFORD AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

BRANTFORD AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

ALLAN STANSBURY, VE3MWX

Al Stansbury, in his 27th year as a licenced amateur, now semi retired Al is able to enjoy the hobby to a much greater extent. He has a confirmed 186 countries worked on CW and is working towards making the honour role. So far, from February 6th 2006 to the current date he has racked up 102 countries. Al is finding that it is becoming more difficult to find them but he occasionally finds an exotic island of some sort to make contact with. Al enjoys contacting the DX-pedtions especially Kirkland Island. He enjoys all aspects of the hobby but favours the exchange of QSL cards with amateurs in countries he has contacted. He can remember the days where QSL cards were hand drawn and such. Now with the addition of computers hams take more pride in their personal cards, whether it is a picture of them sitting in front of their station or photos of their country, a monument, whatever, the collecting of QSL cards has brought much pleasure into Al's life.
Al has built himself quite an antenna farm in his backyard consisting of three separate towers. They were erected for the soul purpose of supporting the various antennas which Al uses while enjoying his radio hobby.
Tower one, behind his shack, is at 80ft with a hustler omni directional 220 MHz antenna, below it is a cushcraft 19 element UHF antenna, below that on the cross beam is a cushcraft 15 element wide band 220 MHz yagi and on the side is a cushcraft 13 element 2 metre yagi.
Tower two, behind Al's home, climbs to 60ft, with 13ft of heavy duty pipe coming out the top. Mounted on the top is a cushcraft 6 element 6 metre yagi, and below it is a mosley 4 element tri bander yagi for hf.
Tower three, at the very back of Al's property, reaches to 90 feet and it supports on top a diamond vertical for 2 metres, below it is a 2 element mosley yagi for 40 metres. Just below that again is a Hygain a tri band yagi for 10, 15, and 20 metres.
What an impressive array of antennas and they are all his. Well okay so there are several other amateurs in the family who might someday push Al over just to get some time on this impressive amateur radio station. During the many years of Al's amateur radio career, he has worked hard to confirm his many contacts in an effort to earn the numerous achievement awards which now decorate the walls of his Ham shack. In one of the photos below you can see some of his Achievement Awards hanging along the right panel. It shows some of the different Awards available in the hobby. I think Al will agree with me when I say that it is enjoyable but not easy work to make all these contacts. The contact is the easy part. After the easy contacts it is the constant searching and listening to find those elusive countries, islands and DX-peditions so that he might work them. Along with his comments about his enjoyment of the hobby, Al also mentioned that being elected President of the B.A.R.C in 2007 was quite an honour. He knows the challenges that face him. He tells us that he has never been a person of office in this kind of an organization before but says that all he can do is the best job he can. It is his hope that the current members as well as those who will join in the near future will be more pro active and not take the arm chair approach. After all this is a hobby, and not to be pessimistic, but we may be the last generation left in the club unless we become more pro active in our actions and thoughts. Getting more involved and remembering that this is just a hobby.

I would like to thank Al for his time, showing me his station and antennas, sharing with me his experiences and thoughts about amateur radio. Ray Marshall, VE3RXM, Editor BARC Newsletter, "The Monitor"

Our thanks go to Ray Marshall, VE3RXM, Editor for allowing us to insert photos and facts from his article in the 2007 November-Decemberissue of the BARC's Newsletter "The Monitor".