QSL image: Vintage Vermont Postcard,"Mt. Mansfield"

My name is Nick. I'm a longtime SWL. I discovered shortwave stations on my grandparents "tuning eye" radio as a child. I became hooked and started saving paper-route money until I could buy a Hammarlund HQ-100C which still gets fired it up once in awhile.

Recently retired, I fulfilled a long time goal of getting a ham license. I have been having a blast. A fortunate, thrilling QSO with Charles Simonyi on board the I.S.S. in early April 2009, hooked me again and sparked my interest in working the OSCAR satellites. Also, thank you Commander Wheelock for activating ham radio on the I.S.S. in 2010!

My outdoor FM sat set-up consists of an IC-W32A downlink, and IC-V82 uplink. The antenna is a homebrew 2M/70cm yagi (2 up, 5 down), based on the WA5VJB design. It's mounted on a camera tripod and can be flipped into a vertical position. Sometimes, I use a WA2ODO built 436 Mhz preamp to help me work into Europe on very low elevation transatlantic AO-51, AO-27 and HO-68 passes.

My satellite base station, used primarily for SSB on the linear transponder sats, consists of a FT-847, MD-100 mic and ARROW II set-up for indoor operation.

Recently, I've added an IC-706MKIIG, Heil HM-IC mic, AT-7000 tuner, various wire antennas and a 6M KU4AB loop to the station. This combo is being used to chase HF DXCC & VUCC~6M. Just added a Rigblaster Plus to the set-up and now am active on PSK31 using cocoaModem 2.0, a very nice program.

QSLing:

I very much enjoy the exchange of traditional paper QSLs, but now also routinely upload all of my HF/6m logs to LoTW.

On Satellites, I only use LoTW for confirmations on a case by case basis.

Awards:

ARRL VUCC~Satellite #184, originally issued Oct. 12, 2009 (currently worked 917 grids in 51 fields with 846 confirmed)

AMSAT Century Award #40, issued Nov. 9, 2010 (currently worked 124 entities with121 confirmed)

AMSAT Member # 37087 Listen for me on the birds!

Satellite Grid Map* (17 April 2012): Red=Confirmed,Blue=Worked *GcmWIN software by SM3GSJ

Photo Below: A summer "gridpedition" to Corea, ME in FN64.