We sat around for a while not thinking of anything creative, then we both remembered hearing about this great station in the Ozarks in Arkansas, about 4 hours away, and we simultaneously exploded: "Road Trip!"

Father and Son

Certainly many of us have grown up to be contesters from early ages due to positive influences by male role models, but there is something special about a dad passing this disease, er, quality on to his own son. Stan Stockton, K5GO, whose dad was N5DX, has passed on this special attribute to his son Kevin, who now holds N5DX. I want to let these guys tell the story...

N5DX: The station is located in Northwest Arkansas on a mountain called Gaither Mountain approximately 2000 feet in elevation. Dad began operating from that location in the early '80s. At the time, I was struggling to pronounce my first words. I guess I was trying to speak in Morse code instead of using the English language.

We had a house fire that destroyed over half of the house and forced us to move off the mountain. Even after the fire, my mom and dad kept several acres. At that time, I had little interest in ham radio, but I did feel a special connection with the mountain and was very sad to leave.

I was first licensed in 1993 as KB5WWA. When vanity call signs came around, I obtained my grandfather's call sign. Ever since that day, I dreamed of having a super-station back on top of the Mountain.

K5GO: Kevin had become a good operator and enjoyed contesting, which gave me a lot of additional incentive to want a better radio station. I kept telling my wife it was all for Kevin, but she said she knew better. There was not enough room at our house to put up much more than we already had.

I had accumulated a lot of tower, aluminum tubing, prop pitch motors and general "stuff" starting when I was about 16 years old. Some of what we are using today has followed me around in storage for over 30 years (sounds familiar - Ed.). I was always very good at accumulating stuff, and perhaps the worst at ever putting it to good use. After conferring with K8CC about the pros and cons of attempting a multi-multi, I decided to go for it.

N5DX: When I was in junior high I used to dream of going off to contesting school. This school would be run by somebody like K3LR or K8CC and they would teach me how to build antennas and become a great operator. They would bestow their years of great wisdom and knowledge on me and I would carry on the radio tradition.

The Next Best Thing

N5DX: In the late '90s we started going up to Lew Gordon's station to work his CQWW multi-multis (K4VX). Lew has an incredible station with a lot of history, and he mentored several of today's finest contesters. I really enjoyed our experiences up there and I felt honored to meet him and operate from his station. I believe that the years we operated at K4VX were the major factor pushing us over the edge to build our own super-station.

K5GO: Our big question was whether to have a small building and build a competitive single-operator station, or whether some of my contest friends would be interested in helping with the many weekends of work to build a larger station where we could do some multi-operator stuff. Les, K5LG, introduced me to Carlin, N5OE, who lived just north of here, near Branson (Missouri). About the same time, I met Red, K5ALU, at the Springfield (Missouri) hamfest. K5LG, N5OE, K5ALU and Chuck, KM5G, all said they would be interested in putting in the effort required for a larger, multi-operator setup.

I found out quickly that Carlin was one of those rare people capable of doing a good job at anything. He also has high energy and enthusiasm, a love for CW, and is a great guy. He suggested that we build a relatively small, but fully equipped, house instead of a portable building of some type.

The plan was to build the house, put up four towers with one Yagi each on 40 through 10 meters, and somehow have a fully operational multi-multi station by CQWW CW in the year 2000. Carlin and I staked out the footprint for the house one cold Saturday in January; and the six of us had it built by about November 1.

For the complete version of this article as published in the NCJ, view the pdf version.