www.W6RDG.com <= My Ham Radio Blog

Originally licensed in 1972 as WN2IRB, along with my dad, WN2IQY, I still remember driving with him into NYC down to Barry Radio where we purchased a brand-new, Ten-Tec TX-100 CW transmitter, a Navy surplus flameproof key, and a hand full of 40 and 80 meter crystals... we then headed over to Allied/Radio Shack to purchase the A-2516 communications receiver... once home we strung 70ft of wire in the attic and connected it to an SST-T1 antenna tuner (the only part of the original setup i still have) and started working stations up and down the east coast, and as far west as California. (I also remember our matching wood-grained QSL cards - oy!) Flash forward 38 years later and, after a short lapse in licensing, i'm back on the air, this time with a mic, working the West Coast, AK & HI, and shooting all the way back into NY, with a long wire and that same SST-T1 tuner. The modes may have changed, the equipment is different, and along the way I've been WN1WID, WA1WID, KA2TMT, KI6YJM and K9RDG, but at least the 'old timer's still insist on saying "HI HI" instead of laughing directly into the microphone. I wish my dad were around to enjoy all this!

November 24, 2009 Update:  I'm currently an official card-carrying/dues-paying member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association (National and Northern California Chapter-11), the Northern California DX Club, and the ARRL.  I also have a buy 10/get 3 free card from Happy Donut.  And last night Scott, W6CT from the Northern California Contest Club stopped by after hearing me during the recent SSB-SS and convinced me to become a member of the NCCC, too, which i did... so i got that going for me, which is nice...

In Memory of Walter E. Banker, Jr. - the previous W6RDG:

So, having enjoyed my previous 'vanity' call K9RDG for about 4 months, I realized that folks answering my calls were often pointing their beams in the wrong direction.  I had originally wanted a 1x3 from '6' land, but both K6RDG and W6RDG were in use.  Then, this past August, I happened to notice that W6RDG was a day away from expiration.  I did some sleuthing and discovered that the 'real' W6RDG, Walter E. Banker, Jr. had, sadly, passed away on March 14, 2006 at the age of 86 in Fresno, CA.  The obituary listing in the Fresno Bee noted that Walter had been a U.S. Army helicopter pilot for 20 years before his retirement, but not much more.  Additional research showed that Walter's wife, Delores Long Banker, passed away just two weeks later.

A look through the online callbook at N4MC's VanityHQ shows that Walter was W6RDG as early as 1981, and likely even earlier, but I've been unable to find any additional information about Walter or his family or activities as a Ham, or even any listings recording Walter as a Silent Key.  So, this I remedied, with notice to the proper venues, and a small donation in Walter's memory.  I am proud to carry forward the W6RDG call. 

RIP, Walter - may your skies be eternally blue and your QSO's always 5&9.

About the Blue Schnauzer:  While I got into ham radio when I was 14, I was into 'radio' at a much younger age.  An avid SWL with piles of mail from former Soviet bloc countries (all sent and received during the height of the Cold War), I got my first 6-transistor radio when I was about 5.  It had a little leather case and a funky little earphone and I could listen to the WMCA Good-Guys and WABC and  Long John Neville and Brad Crandall and Jean Shepard and AM stations up and down the east coast.  So from the first moment I can remember, whenever anyone asked me "what do you want to do when you grow up", I would answer, "I want to be on the radio".  And eventually, I was... first at WTBQ 1110AM in Warwick NY (250w daytimer as I recall) and then at WZLY, the Wellsley College station, where I spent 6 hours every Sunday playing records and talking to myself.  Then other things interceded and broadcasting seemed 'less serious' than engineering or law.  But the spark was still there and when I turned 40, I realized I still wanted to be on the radio.  So I went back to school (The Academy of Radio and Television Broadcasting out of Huntington Beach, CA) and did 900 hours of classroom/studio/on-air training and managed to land second-chair on a weekly political talk show on KSCO 1080AM in Santa Cruz CA (10,000w).  This turned into my own weekend comedy/lifestyle/entertainment show and when the program director asked me what the name for the show was, the first thing that popped into my head was Schnauzer Logic. (yes, there's a story, but i ain't typing it now).

Now my friends had been supportive of my bizarre/creative regression and none more so than my executive assistant Sandra Spencer, who had recently taken up painting as a hobby and a way to make a buck or two.  When I got my show, Sandra surprised me with one of her very first original paintings, a blue schnauzer behind a microphone.  When I said, "wow!  that's great... and it looks just like the George Rodrigue "The Blue Dog" (guessing it was a tribute), she said, "Who?"...  so there you go.  You're thinking it looks like this , but Sandra swears she never saw any of Rodrigue's work, and I believe her.  In any event, Sandra has now become an accomplished painter (and accomplished mom) and you can purchase her works on ebay and etsy and see what she's up to here . Her style has changed a bit over the years, but she's still massively talented and I love her work.  And that's the deal with the Blue Schnauzer.  (oh yeah, Schnauzer Logic went off the air a few years ago, on amicable terms, and then came back as a weekly podcast broadcast out of my own studio.  All shows are all available on iTunes.  Its a comedy/pop culture/music type of show and kind of risque (definitely PG-13, occasionally more), so if you're not into that kind of 'entertainment', just give it a pass and i promise i won't be offended, and neither will you! LOL)