Paul S. Swanson - AA0K - Monument, Colorado

I've been into shortwave radio seemingly forever. My first electronics mentor was Mr. Heinz Gilcher who worked at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh and supplied me with knowledge and mountains of scrap components. Thanks for the great start and all your advice. My folks moved to Northern Wisconsin in 1975, and I built up a RTTY (RX only) station in high school with a huge pile of WWII vintage gear I got from my Shop Teacher's father (Model 15 teletype, retired coast guard shortwave receiver and a home-made "twin cities" TU - thanks Mr. Hoiby. The first "Ham" I knew was Father Gus (Augustine J. Hanchak, W9ACO, SK), a local priest and family friend who first introduced me to ham radio and airplanes when I was a teen-ager in Northern Wisconsin. I graduated from Michigan Technological University with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in 1982, and with a Master's degree in 1984.

I met Dianne while at university and we were married in 1984. We both worked for Hewlett-Packard in Colorado Springs. We chose to move to the Pacific Northwest (Seattle) in 1991 and tried a different career for a while at a company called Intermec. I learned to fly. We hiked, canoed and camped in the Cascades and Olympic Peninsula. We visited Vancouver Island as often as possible while living there. We made many friends and developed a love for seafood and the sea while there.

We moved back to Colorado Springs in 1995 to join a startup (Forte' Networks, now morphed into "Fluke Networks" - a sister company of Fluke Corporation and Tektronix) with a bunch of old HP buddies, and have been there ever since.We both learned to sail and I re-learned Morse Code well enough to finally get off my kiester and pass my Technician (March 2003), General (February, 2004) and Amateur Extra (June 2004). After being a design engineer for 20 years, the question pool was no longer as daunting as it was when I was in high school without elmers. I wish I had buckled down and done this 30 years ago!

Dianne and I love seafood, camping, hiking, fishing, canoeing and sailing - we do a little GeoCaching (mostly an excuse to hike in areas new to us). We both read huge numbers of books on many varied topics.

I have an Icom 746 for my main rig and a IC-706MKIIG for mobile, along with a collection of VHF/UHF gear and some hobebrew equipment.  

I am an ARRL Technical Specialist in Colorado: http://www.k0nr.com/contacts.html I am a member of Pikes Peak Radio Amateurs Association (PPRAA), Colorado QRP Club, TAPR, ARRL and OMISS #5366 and am an ARRL VE

73

Paul S.