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 Intstitute, 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 (was too low on the seniority list!), 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 (he still remembers the green house
in Los Altos.) Later, he sold more radio-related instruments, RF and Microwave
spectrum analyzers for TEK.
Ken was born in Danbury, CT, at the
closest hospital to his parent's home in Westchester County, NY in 1937, and
introduced to ham radio through classmates and the Katonah High School radio
club (remember HS radio clubs?). First contest experience was Field Day 1952,
as an observer/tower climber/go-fer, etc. He sat for the novice test in early
'53 in NYC, and while awaiting his license (it took up to eight months to get
the ticket then), he operated in Field Day 1953, as the primary 20m cw op with
the Mt. Kisco ARC. First contest as KN2EIU was the 1953 ARRL Sweepstakes, when
his first QSO was with W4KFC. Inspiration from Vic and other big guns of those
days fanned the contesting fire, leading to Ken's first win, the high national
score in the 1954 Novice Roundup. In the early days, he was very active in cw
traffic handling.
He operated from home in rural South
Salem, NY and from W2SZ at RPI, in the 1950s, and as K2EIU/5 in Big Spring and
San Antonio, Texas, K2EIU/0 in Kansas City, MO, in the 60's. Ken ended up in CA
in 1969, assigned by TWA to SFO and was a founding member of the Northern
California Contest Club (NCCC) in 1970. In the early 70s, he acquired the
WA6DKF and W6PAA callsigns, modifying to N6RO in 1976. Introduced to big
antennas and multi-operator/ multi-transmitter class of 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.
Ken moved to a ten acre farm in
He has participated in 63 CW SS, about 50
SSB SS contests, more than 100 CD parties, scores of DX contests and about 2200
contests in all. He served on the ARRL Contest Advisory Committee in the
1980's. N6RO is still very active (20+ contests per year), practicing the SO2R
(Single operator-two radio) concept, hosting multi operator-multi transmitter
efforts in some major contests, and maintaining the steel, aluminum and copper
antenna field: Five towers hosting stacked yagis on 40 through 10m, wire loop
arrays on 80m, 4 Square vertical arrays on 40, 80, 160m, SAL-30 and several
beverages. Favorite interest in contesting these days are the Thursday night
NCCC sprints, and the CW OPS sprints.
A high-light in contesting for Ken was manning the 80m station at HC8N
in the Galapagos Islands in the 2003 CQWW CW contest. Ken was honored for
lifetime contesting achievement and contributions in 2003, by induction into
the CQ Contest Hall of Fame: N6RO -
CQ Contest Hall of Fame 2003
Keeler maintains two other avocations
pre-dating his 65 years in ham radio: farming - grows wine grapes for Cline
Cellars (
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