Thanks for stopping by.

I have been involved with electronics in one fashion or another since I was a child. I got my Novice ticket when I was 16 when I lived in Michigan. My first rig consisted of a home-brew transmitter made from parts from a junk TV set and a tube swiped from my mother's Hi-Fi. It had a whopping 9 watts out! The receiver was a Knight Ocean Hopper. The antenna was an end-fed wire about 150 feet long. No SWR meters. I tuned it with a #47 lamp I also swiped from my mother's Hi-Fi.

We then moved to Waukegan, Illinois where I upgraded to General. The rigs also upgraded too. My transmitter was a Heathkit AT-1 with the VF-1 VFO and AC-1 Antenna Coupler. Again no SWR meter. The AC-1 had a neon lamp you tuned for max brilliance. The antenna was a 80 meter dipole 15 feet high and fed with 75 ohm coax. I attached the center conductor of the coax to the stand-off and the shield to the case of the tuner. This was a L-Tuner by the way, and I still managed to make contacts! The receiver was a Hammarlund HQ-140X. I wish I still had it. Shortwave sounds best with tubes.

In the house I run a Tec-Tec Jupiter with a Heil PR-40 microphone. My key is hand-made by Jerry KR8A. My amplifier is an AL-80B. The antenna system consists of 135' dipole fed with twin-lead and a 4BTV vertical. The dipole is interfaced to the rig with a Palstar AT4K tuner.

My Grab n'Go station consists of a Ten-Tec Argonaut V, LDG Z718 auto-tuner and various wire antennas. I also have the Ten-Tec 4020 two band QRP CW transciever. Runs on AA batteries, lots of fun.

I am a member of ARRL, East Pasco Amateur Radio Society, Flying Pigs QRP International, Southcars and SATERN. Also, one of my jobs in our club is maintaining our repeater that operates on 146.88. I am also an ARRL Technical Specialist which translates into helping others and making technical presentations from time to time.

As I mentioned earlier, I been involved with electronics basically my entire young adult and adult life. After high school I joined the US Navy and attended Aviation Electronics Technician School A & B in Millington, TN. From there I was attached to RVAH-3 and RVAH-11 at NAS Albany, Ga supporting the electronics on the RA5C Vigilante. After the Navy I fixed TV's and stereo equipment for about 10 years. Then I was hired as Jr. Quality Assurance Engineer at AT&T Paradyne where I performed FCC and ESD compliance testing and consultation. Later I was the Military Production Test Manager at Group Technologies in charge to 65 technicians and 6 test support engineers. I've since landed at a local university as the Classroom Technology Manager.

Life is good.