Hi!

I was first licensed at age 13 in January, 1959 with the callsign KN3OLG in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The Novice license allowed only CW operation and I found that I very easily graduated from the minimum 5 WPM up to the 13 required for my General class license, K3OLG. As K3OLG and later KH6IGA (and others) I spent the great bulk of my efforts on 20 meter CW chasing DX and managed to pick up a few awards. Here's a picture from 1962. Notice the bug hidden behind my arm.

In 1968 I was the only person in the world to hear an SOS on 20 meter CW from a ship that was on fire off Baja California and was sinking. As a result of the ham on-board madly sending out SOS with the location of the ship and other information, everyone on-board was rescued before the ship sank. If you can read the small print in the story, rest assured none of those "quotes" were actually said, although the basic story is true.

I've always enjoyed the challange of high-speed CW and at my peak could copy 68 WPM but am nowhere near that now. I am CWops #715.

In the 1980's the FCC opened up a window to Amateur Extra class licensees who'd had their extra class licenses for over 20 years and were willing to give up their collection ofother callsigns. I turned them all in to receive the (non-vanity)1X2 callsign K6QU.

In the mid 80's I had the QTH I always wanted: On a hill, tower, yagi and a kilowatt. Unfortunately at the time I was the chief engineer of 9 radio stations simultaneously and just couldn't come home from working on radios all day and sometimes night and turning on another radio and so I went QRT.

I've retired from broadcasting and my QRT ended in March, 2010 when I bought a used ICOM IC-756PROII on eBay and installed a 14AQV vertical antenna on the roof of our house. I'd had great luck with a vertical as KH6IGA using Kaneohe Bay as my radial system (the tuning changed depending on the tide!) but not so at this QTH. On August 25, 2010 the new tower and TH-5 60 feet in the air finally became a reality and on November 1, 2010 the Icom PW-1 arrived. Nice to be running a kilowatt again. In November 2010 the TH-5 was replaced with a TH-7DX then in April, 2011 I replaced the 756PROii with a new ICOM IC-7600. Additions since have been an A3WS for the WARC bands and a D-40 rotatable dipole for 40 meters.

Here's what I looked like about 1970. Hippie Ham.

Here is a picture I took while flying with a friend in his 1946 J-3 Piper Cub showing the tower and antennas from above:

Here's the TH-7 with the A3WS above and a D-40 40 meter rotatable dipole in between the two yagis. In November 2011 my wife Sheryl and I visited Eddy, XV1X in Hanoi. Here are pictures of me, Sheryl, Eddy's wife Hang and Eddy at a Hanoi restaurant and me at Eddy's station. The picture at the top of the page is current. I've lost a lot of weight since that picture was taken in Viet Nam in November, 2011.

73,

Jerry