Next PAARA Meeting
Friday June 7, 2013
Please Note: Due to a family emergency, John Miller, K6MM is unable to give his talk at the June 7th meeting. Instead, Rick Tavan (N6XI) will take his place.
Title of Presenation: "Contesting"
by Rick, N6XI
Rick Tavan was first licensed in 1961 as KN3QDD in Maryland, held a few other calls and finally settled in as N6XI in California. He is retired from TIBCO Software Inc. and now splits his time between Saratoga and Truckee. His first love in radio was CW traffic handling in the 60's, followed quickly by contesting.
He joined PVRC and operated a lot of CD Parties and CW Sweepstakes. As an undergraduate, he was an officer of the MIT Radio Society and after graduation became trustee of the club station W1MX. Moving to CA in 1976, he joined the Northern CA Contest Club where he served a stint as president and other positions.
The highlight of his contesting career was participation in the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championship in Moscow as teammate to K6XX. They placed in the middle of the pack but it was a pretty strong pack of world-class contesters. His highest single-operator placing was seventh worldwide (first Asia) in a longago running of the CQ Worldwide DX Contest (CW) as N6XI/4X.
He has been on many first, second and third place teams in multi-operator categories of CQ Worldwide, ARRL DX and CQ WPX contests. Rick's other radio interests include QRP construction and operating. He has built a variety of kit radios and currently uses the Elecraft K-3, and KX-3. He is a member of FOC and a life member of ARRL and CWops.
