Amateur Radio Contest Station
Oakley, California
Who is Ken Keeler, N6RO?
Here's a short bio of Ken's Ham Radio involvement since 1952 (updated November, 2025)
Ken retired from gainful employment in 1997, after several diverse careers. Due to ham radio influence in high school, he earned a BSEE degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. The military needs of the US in the early 60’s steered Ken toward the USAF pilot training program, where he got his wings and stayed on for six years as an instructor pilot and ground school teacher. The lure of an airline pilot career led to an abortive on/off relationship with TWA, where he was furloughed three times, re-called twice. During the first furlough, he was hired by a fellow contester, K5MM (SK), to be a sales engineer for Tektronix, selling oscilloscopes. A memorable sale was to the Apple Computer founders, who bought their first high performance scope from Ken about 1975, while they operated out of a garage (I still remember the green house, in Los Altos.) Later, he sold more radio-related instruments, RF and Microwave spectrum analyzers for TEK.
Ken was born in NY in1937, and introduced to ham radio in high school, through classmates and the HS radio club (remember them?). First contest experience was Field Day 1952, as an observer/tower climber/go-fer, etc. He sat for the novice test in early 1953, and while awaiting his license (it took up to eight months to get the ticket then), then operated (supervised) FD ‘53, as the primary 20m CW op. First contest as KN2EIU was the 1953 ARRL Sweepstakes, when his first QSO was with W4KFC. Inspiration from Vic and other big guns of the day fanned the contesting fire, leading to Ken’s first win, the high national score in the 1954 Novice Roundup.
He operated from home in rural NY, from W2SZ at RPI, and as K2EIU/5 in Texas, /0 in MO, in SS and more than 100 CD parties. Ken ended up in CA in 1969, assigned by TWA to SFO and was a founding member of NCCC in 1970. He acquired the WA6DKF and W6PAA callsigns, modifying to N6RO in 1976. Introduced to big antennas and multi-multi contesting at K6EBB, Ken set up a three tower station in San Jose on a small city lot, and endured it’s obvious RFI problems for a few years.. He moved to a ten acre farm in Oakley in 1978 and built a rather large station, with the help of many NCCC members including N6BT, N6IG, K6ZM, W6OAT, K9LBQ, WC6H, N6BV.... And in the last 15 years: N6WM, N6ML, NA6O, KO6M, K6KM, WD6T, WX6G, KK6PXT, W6WZZ. AD6D/XE2K or N9LS now do the tower work.
Ken is still very active (20+ contests per year), practicing the SO2R concept, hosting multi-multi efforts in major contests, and maintaining the steel, aluminum and copper antenna field: Five towers hosting stacked yagi’s on 40 through 10m, wire loop arrays on 80m, Four-Square vertical arrays on 80 and 160m, JK801 rotatable dipole at 165’, and several receiving antenna. A highlight in contesting was manning the 80m station at HC8N in the 2002 CQWWCW contest. Ken was honored for lifetime contest achievement and contributions in 2003, by induction into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame.
He also maintains two avocations older than his 73 years in ham radio: Farming--grows wine grapes--and music. Ken worked his way through college playing Dixieland Jazz (before Rock & Roll), and has led/managed his Devil Mountain Jazz Band through 300 jazz festivals/cruises and 500+ other concerts around the world since 1982. His music activity/schedule can be found at www.jazznut.com. The website you're on now, built by NA6O, is up and running, and we're still adding more features.