Solar X-rays and Geomagnetic Field

Hi, Okay what do you write in your bio that won’t bore people to death? Well the answer is, the people that would get board aren’t really interested anyway so I’ll go ahead and tell you my story.

When I was a little boy, I remember my dad turning the dial on a swan radio and hearing those strange changing sounds kind of like a loud dog whistle that was audible for humans. When he would find what he was looking and listening for he would sometimes wind up talking to someone I didn’t know and I would slowly lose interest in the conversation because the words were too big for me to understand. The thing that caught my attention was more the question in my mind, “what was happening in that box that made those strange sounds?” Sometimes he would take them apart and would warn me not to get too close “capacitors store high electrical energy” he would say, so I would stand on my toes to look over the edge of the case and see what it was inside that box that made that thing work.

I came close but never really understood what made it work back then but, to the best of my ability to recall, I think that was the root of who I am today. From that point forward, I did succeed in taking apart my toys and putting them back together so that they would work like they did when they were new, and I got to learn exactly why. As time went on, my thirst for knowledge only grew stronger. I split off from that electrical world and went to the mechanical world after my first crystal radio. That was a fun project but I think, I though I could make more progress learning how the world works via a deeper understanding of the mechanical aspects of life rather than the electrical realm which can’t be touched. That started a branch down the road of model airplanes, bicycle and lawnmower repair which eventually was promoted to dune buggies, cars, motorcycles and airplanes and viola I grew up.

As I started my career at a local manufacturing plant, I soon realized how much I didn’t know about the mechanical aspect of the world around us so quickly got started back to school to learn the old fashion way. About a year into my mechanical engineering studies I was forced to take a computer programming class. I was just finishing up the second calculus class and my first statics with kinematics on the upcoming agenda. When I was frustrated with having such a heavy workload I asked my dad, “what on earth am I ever going to need computer programming for?” He said, you never know. Well guess what. That class turned me back around from the mechanical world to the abstract world of electrical and theory. Yep, that class was the best bar none, all those questions I had stored up in the back of my mind (from using a computer at work) were being answered in that class. I rushed to my counselor and got switched from mechanical engineering to computer science. At that point things simply fell into place; I couldn’t get enough of it. The more I learned and tried the more I wanted to learn and try. The company I was working for promptly put my newfound skills to the test and now I was able to do what I loved all day long and on top of that, get paid for it.

After spending a couple of years writing software for programmers the company sent me to Europe to write the programmers over there a programming language in their spoken language. At the same time I got to learn their spoken language very well (French). I also got an education in culture shock. Its amazing how much alike we are and at the same time how different we are. That was a rewarding experience to say the least.

When I got back to the US, the dot com craze was just getting off the ground and I jumped on that band wagon and started my tour of corporate America. It was wonderful, double pay right out of the gate and getting to further expand my knowledge of the many aspects of what makes computers do what we want them to do. After 5 years of that, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse and settled in with computer system integration. They made me stop writing software and told me I was now a Software Architect. I miss writing code but I guess they get more value this way.

The whole time I was developing my career path; my dad would tell me to get my HAM license. It’s so easy, he would say. I have two No-Code Plus books on my book shelf that I never read. He gave them to me in an effort to get me to get my license. Well, my hobbies while developing my career path were flying and distributed computer programming. I didn’t have time for another hobby. I don’t know why, but in July of 2004, I decided to get my license. I started by searching the internet for information on what level of license granted what privileges. I found the general class offered the most with a quantity of effort I could devote at the time.

I downloaded all the information I could find on Morse code and the question pools. I wrote two programs to get the computer to teach me everything I needed to know to get my general class ticket. I learned a lot about the code by writing a very flexible code tutor. I imagined another human sending me code and my having to get that person to make changes to better enable me to concentrate on the areas I was weakest in. I then burned code to CDs and listened to them in the car on the way to work and home every day. When I felt comfortable with 13 words per minute, I dropped back to 5 words per minute and got scared to death. I couldn’t go that slowly. Farnsworth helped me out with that and I got back on track. Now for those question pools; Okay, another program was in order. How would I best accomplish this task? Well, what If I could simply open the downloaded question pool with this new program I was writing and in mode one, it would read the question, pause a second to let me try to answer in my head, and then read the answer after me so that I would know if I got it right or wrong. Okay that worked but I needed lots of practice. Once again burn this dialog to CDs and listen to them on the way to work and back. Okay, now mix that with the wrong answers and see if you can pick out the right answer, from two pools of ~500 each (General Class remember?). Next, step… practice is the key, step in mode two of the program; popup a question and let me choose from the question pool's list of answers. Record my score as I go along. At the end of the test, try to get 100% in a shorter time than in the previous attempt, faster, faster, faster. In the end, 2 and ½ months passed and I was ready. I looked again to the internet to find somewhere nearby I could take my test. Spartanburg SC was offering the test on September the 10, 2004. That was the date. I found the place and got my General Ticket! WOW I was on cloud 9.

Now I do APERS to kind of mix up my love for computing and my new found appreciation for all I don’t know in radio. I wander the isles of the ham fests and the whole time I’m wondering “what I would use that for if I bought it?” It’s never ending, that thirst for understanding I first remember from hearing that strange noise coming from that radio with a swan on it when I wasn’t as tall as the desk top it was sitting on.