Ned Stearns was first licensed in August 1963 at age 12 in Warren, OH. After receiving his Technician license in 1964, he operated primarily on VHF AM using home brew transmitters built from WW II surplus hardware and low-budget receivers. Ned moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1974 and caught the DX bug after running into a number of local hams. He was the first member of CADXAto conduct a DXpedition in 1979 to VP2A (AA7A/VP2A).

Over the course of Cycle 22 and 23, Ned managed to collect a number of operating achievement awards including Top of the Honor Roll, 5BWAZ, Satellite DXCC, and the first ever 11-band DXCC (160 through 2 meters, inclusive).

Beginning again in 1999, he participated in DXpeditions to Rodriguez Island, 3B9R and the Kingman Reef DXpedition, K5K in 2000. On this adventure, he convinced the DXpedition team to use the previously untested Vertical Dipole Array. The startling success of this antenna system on this expedition paved the way for most following island DXpeditions.

In 2005, Ned joined the world-renowned VooDoo Contest Groupin their annual trek to Africa to participate in the CQWW DX CW contest from Mali as TZ5A. Since, he has continued to travel to West Africa yearly for the CQWW CW contest. He has been the station designer and is now the team co-leader of the VooDoo Contest Group. Recently, he has developed ultra-light antenna designs and support structures that support the deployment of fully-capable contest/DXpedition systems that fit within airline baggage weight and size restrictions.

Ned is currently employed as Electrical Engineer at General Dynamics where he is a Member of the Technical Staff. He designs, deploys, tests and develops maintenance methods for nation-wide, tactical communication systems for US Government agencies.

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