About

Grid Square: CM97bf

W6LSN is the callsign that is assigned to me by the Federal Communications Commission. I requested it after my grandfather, Albert K. Mealey passed away. He was the original holder of the callsign. I was first licensed in August of 1973 as WN3VHS. I upgraded to General Class in April of 1974. In April 1975 I upgraded to Advanced class. I upgraded to Extra Class in November, 1999 just in time for the FCC to lower the code requirement from 20wpm to 5wpm!

One thing I’ve discovered is how different various web browsers are. If you load the z3801a page in different web browsers, look at the bottom of the status image. I changed the formatting so that the image looks best in Interent Explorer, not because I like it, but because over 75% of the site visitors are using it. The image looks OK, but not perfect in FireFox, Google’s Chrome etc.

This site is a work in progress so please excuse any incompleteness. However, if you find a broken link, please let me know as it shouldn’t be.

QSL cards.  After contact is made between two operators, they often exchange confirmation of the contact in the form of a postcard.  In the upper right corner of most pages, you’ll see various cards that I’ve collected over the years.  Most are contacts that I’ve made, but some are from the club stations that I’ve been a member of:

• WA3SFN in Mechanicsburg, PA was the first club I was associated with and was where I operated as a Novice, General and Advanced class operator.  Two tries to get the code test for Novice in August of 1973.  I had to skip high school with my buddy to go to Baltimore with his mom to take our General exams in April 1974.  A year later I drove myself and passed the Advanced class exam.
• WA4USN (NNN0TFL) is the callsign of the club station on the aircraft carrier Yorktown that is now located in Patriot’s Point South Caronlina which is near Charles ton.  NNN0TFL (The Fighting Lady) is the Navy MARS callsign and uses the ships nickname.
• W3ADO (NNN0NNN) is the club station at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.  I helped restore the station to full operating capacity, repairing and aligning the 4 Collins S-Line transmitters.  Refurbishing the 40M beam and the HF tribander.  I was club President for a year and a half.
• K4AF is located on the 5th floor of the Pentagon and is sponsored primarily by the Air Force.  While at that club, I helped get the 450MHz repeater up and running by retuning the duplexer and helping reprogram the ID’er.  We all spent an afternoon on the roof getting the antenna installed.