| At Dayton 1999 Frank Donovan was
inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. Here is Frank's Story: # 33: Frank Donovan, W3LPL (Nominated by the: Potomac Valley Radio Club) For more than 30 years, Frank has been at the forefront of contest station design technology. In numerous public forums as well as within his own club, the PVRC, he has been generous in imparting this knowledge, along with his extensive knowledge of radio propagation, to his colleagues and to the general amateur radio public. W3LPL is also a world-class contest operator. Before devoting himself to constructing and maintaining a major multi-multi contest station, he took first place single operator/USA numerous times in the ARRL CW DX Contests and the CQWW CW contest. He was also an operator in world record setting multi-multi operations from Curacao. He also regularly topped the third district in the ARRL CW SS in those years. He developed the theory, since proven out by countless others, that one should begin the CW SS by two or three hours of rapid S&P before settling down to run stations. Frank has demonstrated that you don't have to be a millionaire to build and maintain a top-notch multi-multi contest station. Through a combination of aggressive pursuit of surplus government tower materials and thoughtful, common sense station design, where he home-brewed the single-band amplifiers himself, Frank has consistently produced champagne-budget results with beer-budget input. In the two decades since W3LPL began to operate as a multi-multi station, he has won top USA Multi-Multi honors dozens of times in the ARRL and CQWW DX contests on both modes. His was the first multi-multi station to win both DX contests on both modes in one season and he has now done this several times. His station now has amassed over 100,000 Q's in CQWW SSB and CW and ARRL CW, and lacks only a few thousand Q's to reach the 100k mark in ARRL SSB. W3LPL has also been the mainstay of his contest club, PVRC. Through his cajoling, cheerleading, and sheer force of personality, he kept the club together and motivated through some of the lean years when few youngsters were joining the ranks of Amateur Radio. Along with fellow PVRC'er N2FB, Frank established the PVDXSN Packetcluster in the earliest days of that technology and pioneered many of the techniques which now are taken for granted in the mating of this new technology with traditional contest operating. This evolved into one of the premier spotting networks in the world, the East Coast Megacluster which covers the entire Northeastern US. The Packetcluster in turn has been an instrument for club cooperation and unity. In all ways. as an organizer and leader, as a source of innovative technical designs, and as a world-class operator, Frank Donovan is a most deserving member of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. |
Congratulations to PVRC Member Frank Donovan W3LPL. He is the May 1998 Cover Story on CQ Magazine.
Directly from CQ Magazine it says:If you consider yourself a contester and you've never heard of this guy, you really ought to get out more! Frank Donovan, W3LPL, hosts one of the premier multi-operator, multi-transmitter contest stations in the world from this Glenwood, MD QTH, producing consistent world-class scores. What goes unrecognized by too many contesters is the enormous support of the pursuit of great contesting performance that is provided by gracious and generous station owners such as W3LPL. Our hats are off to you, Mr. Donovan.
(Photo by Larry Mulvehill, WB2ZPI)
Bottom Photo's (not shown in CQ) by Steve Affens K3SA
Frank and Wife Phyllis
