Stealth and Portable Antennas

Speaker: Anthony Luscre – K8ZT

Abstract:
There are a number of factors that may limit your ability to put up a traditional antenna at your home – HOAs, local laws, rental agreements, and of course spousal approval. This session will help you get around these issues and get you on the air. We will explore a number of solutions, and give tips for better performance, while maintaining RF safety and avoiding RFI. Along the way will also bust some antenna myths.

About our speaker:
First licensed in 1981 as KA8NRC, Anthony has been a QRP operator since his first HF QSO. No one told him that Novices should not start with a 2 watt QRP rig. After updating to an Extra Class License, he changed his call sign to K8ZT in June 2000. Anthony is active in a variety of Amateur Radio activities, but his favorite amateur radio activities are operating and teaching others about the hobby.

Whether contesting, DXing, rag chewing, satellites, HF or VHF/UHF, CW, Phone or Digital, the QRP contacts now top 123,000. First drawn to contesting by his love of working DX, he has consistently finished in the top ten of various major contests and finished first in the World and US in both CQ Worldwide Phone and CW QRP categories multiple times. As a bonus, his QRP DXCC total recently topped the 333 mark (with 323 confirmed), and he has completed the 11-band WAS.

Anthony has presented over 600 ham radio-related sessions since the beginning of COVID-19. He has presented multiple times for Contest University, QSO Today Expo, Dayton Hamvention Antenna Forum, ARRL and RSGB Webinars, and RATPAC.us. He teaches a weekly class, “The Joy of Operating” for the LICW Club and serves on the planning committees for RATPAC and the State QSO Party Challenge. In 2024, he received the Dayton Hamvention “Special Achievement Award”.

Now retired, Anthony served 20 years as a Medical Technologist in Clinical Microbiology, private computer consulting, and 20 years as a Computer Technology Coordinator and Technology Director (most recently as a Technology Integration Specialist for 30 school districts). Anthony also volunteers as a Trainman on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

Anthony serves as ARRL Ohio Section Youth Coordinator and an officer in his local radio club. He enjoys sharing his Amateur Radio interests with others by maintaining a website, www.k8zt.com, writing articles for a variety of publications, including CQ Magazine (column “Ham Radio Explorer”), DX Engineering blog “On All Bands,” and developing an online course “Introduction to Contesting” for the ARRL Learning Network.

Anthony and his wife Linda, KA8ODP, live near Akron, in Stow, Ohio.

Note: The meeting location is 309 Alplaus Ave, Alplaus, NY, and the building is at the corner of Alplaus Avenue and Bruce Drive. Please park in the paved lot adjacent to this building. Do not park in the restricted area in front of the building that houses the fire trucks. We will meet in the Multipurpose Room (entrance is on the North side of this building).