I am a retired railroad engineer. I retired from the Union Pacific in 2002 when I was forced to retire after cancer surgery. .

I had my first contact with Amateur Radio when I was with the 1st Cavalry Division in Viet Nam. I made a call home to my family thru a MARS station and was bit by the ham bug right then. That was in 1970 and of course being a little slow that I am it took me until 1981 to do anything about it. My first call was KA0IZO Which had a good swing to it in CW.  My shack is very modest, but works great for the type of amateur radio I do. It consists of as of 8/09 .        Rigs: Icom IC-706MKIIG, Icom IC-718 for HF operations. I also have an Ameritron ALS-500M for those times when a little extra kick is called for.

I have (2) Yaesu FT-7800's for UHF/VHF and several Yaesu 1802 in the vehicles and an icom-2100H on my 1999 Yamaha Venture touring motorcycle. I still have my original 2-meter rig which is an old Icom IC-2AT handheld. I used it many a day and night running railroad mobile thru the towns along the Union Pacific main line across Nebraska.

Antennas: I use a 80m Super Delta Loop at the home QTH for HF work and have a 50' tower with a 4 element 6m beam, 12 element 2meter beam and a 440 beam. For mobile operations I use a Icom 706MKIIG with a High Sierra side kick screwdriver antenna.

I am the trustee for W0VFW Amateur Radio Club that is sponsored by VFW Post 3115 here in Wichita, Ks. Our mission is to assist Veterans in any way we can and introduce the amateur community to the VFW and the many great programs it has.

73's

Dennis

KF0TG