Our Operators

A fancy contest station is useless without a solid team of operators. And we have some of the best! Following are some biographies. By the way, what's it like for a new contester to join N6RO? Here's one story, from NA6O.

And be sure to find the answer to Who Is Ken Keeler, N6RO?

K3EST - Bob Cox

Bob is a contesting legend and Contest Hall of Fame member. He served as the CQ Director of Contesting, and CQWW director for an amazing 35 years. Bob knows everyone, has been everywhere, and is a walking encyclopedia of ham radio and other topics.

N6WM - Chris Tate

Technologist, DXpeditioneer and contest operator, radiosport author (CQ/WWROF, QST magazine), winner of multiple North America contests. Check out his videos.

WD6T - David A. Jaffe

David is one of those lifelong hams who got into serious contesting late, and then really took off!. Proficient in SO2R and 2BSIQ, he's burning up the bands from several stations plus some DX locations.

WX5S - Matt Thomas

Matt is a long-time contester and one of our foundation operators. A winner of Sweepstakes SSB, he's a fantastic phone operator but just as competent on CW or RTTY.

WU6P - Nian Li

Nian, originally from China, joined the N6RO team in 2019.  Coached by the best to become a contester. He is a CW enthusiast and enjoys team work very much.

KK6PXT - Greg Alameda

A newcomer to contesting, Greg has been with Team RO since 2020, enjoys SSB contests, and has helped rebuild and modernize the shack. He's currently building his own dream station

KO6M - David West

Another newcomer, David ramped up quickly and even took over as President of NCCC.

VA7RR - Gary Caldwell

Gary used to live in our area and still drops by to operate. A highly experienced contester, he's operated from many locations around the world.

K7GK - Denis Pochuev

A contester since the young age, Denis took a break to complete his studies and re-establish himself in zone 3. A CW enthusiast, he enjoys both single-op and multi-op contesting and has been honored twice to be a referee at WRTC.

NA6O - Gary Johnson

Gary joined the team in 2016 and learned from the best. He's now mainly serving as station engineer and webmaster. Gary enjoys operating CW, DXing, and station building.

W9KKN - Bill Fehring

Bill is a well-known contester, operating from many world-class stations. He's also helped us numerous times with station engineering issues.

NT6V - Michael Zuerch

Michael has been a contester for many years and has operated at several contest stations as well as the T32C DXpedition.

K6KM - Roberto Sadkowski

Operated from N6RO since 2019 on several multi-multi contests and solo for the North American QSO Party RTTY where he won with Team #1 NCCC. Being multi-lingual really helps on SSB.

KI6NJW - Dominique Toomey

Dominique helps a lot during the California QSO party raking in lots of QSOs on 40 during the day. She became interested in contesting thru her dad, K3EST.

Operators Emeritus

Some giants of the ham radio world have helped build and operate N6RO over the years.

K6NA - Glenn Rattman

Well-known DXer and contester, low-band specialist and skilled antenna designer, Glenn helped out in the early days of our station building and operating.

WA6O - Mike Shapiro

Originally from Russia, Mike was a fabulous CW operator and member of countless DXpeditions and also WRTC. Sitting next to him was a great learning experience, with his skills and stories about his many adventures.

K7NV - Kurt Andress

Besides being a skilled contester, Kurt was perhaps most famous for his mechanical engineering as applied to towers and antennas, and also as the master of prop-pitch rotators. He spent many a day up the towers of N6RO.