I got my Novice in October of 1962 while living in Houston, thanks to some fine folks who were willing to elmer me through the Novice test. I went off to college shortly thereafter, then worked for Lockheed Missiles & Space at the Manned Spacecraft Center, followed by the military, and didn't have much time for hamming. I picked it up again in January 2005. You can find me doing digital wherever the bands are good -- the higher, the better.

The current shack rig is a Yaesu FT-897D driving a Gap Titan DX antenna. I use my Collins R-390 (a Rick Mish restoration job) for listening sometimes; it also warms the shack nicely. Other receivers are a pair of R-390A (EAC), an SDR-IQ from RFSpace Inc., an Icom PCR-1000, two R-1051 (-B, -H), an ITT-Mackay 3020, a DEBEG E2000, and a RACAL 6217E; not all are in play at any given time.

Mobile rig is a Yaesu FT-857D driving one of several monoband Anttron HamWhips.

I'm working on a switch-mode power supply design for 2500V at 1A, which will power an HF amp running an 8791 (RCA/Burle) -- once I finish the amp design.

I've been fighting computers for a living since 1965, when I worked at the Manned Spacecraft Center. From 1977 to 2001 I was doing large mainframe systems programming (MVS and its descendants) for the Oklahoma Dept. of Transportation. Now I run the nameservers, mailfilters, and other widgetry for the same agency, and teach the systems programmers and their managers.

My MixW log is online and dynamically updated once a minute, linked from 

http://mikea.ath.cx/hamshack/

along with images of the shack and a link to the code that eats the log and produces HTML.

Thanks for looking, and very 73, de

Mike Andrews, W5EGO mikea@mikea.ath.cx Tired old sysadmin