******PLEASE NOTE******

I WILL QSL DIRECT, HOWEVER I AM CURRENTLY ABOUT 8 MONTHS BEHIND ON IT. IF YOU SENT ME A CARD, HOLD TIGHT AND YOU WILL RECEIVE A REPLY!!!!

I am slowly building a website, check it out and drop me a comment; http://www.kd0frt.comhttp://www.kd0frt.com

Like any kid of the 80s I had a pair of the crappy GI-JOE 70mhz AM two way radios. Not liking the range of these which was shortly further than I could throw a school bus at the time I set out to improve the performance of these little gems. After tearing one apart to see what makes it tick, I discovered the telephone pole in my back yard had a nice long copper wire attached to

it The ground wire! Much to my dismay (surprise?) it didn't work like I had hoped and was terribly impractical I mean, when we're playing army I can't haul a telephone pole in my back pocket. Obviously attaching my radio (or myself) to this ground wire wasn't a very good idea in the least bit, but I didn't know any better. Further attempts to better my radio I discovered the difference between 9 volts DC and 110 volt AC Yeah, I let the smoke out of my little radio trying to power it off a lamp cord. Oops.

Boy Scout camp was my first exposure to radios that could communicate with someone you coudln't see and had carrier squelch to boot! They used Radio Shack CBs to talk around the camp, so I hadto have one.

At the age of 11 the father of my best friend worked for the National Weather Service, William Gery (KA2FNK). While he never actually talked on the radio that I saw it still furthered my interest in two way radio. His interest was more into packet radio betewen his home QTH in Shawnee and the KCMO Downtown government building where his office was located. If I recall correctly, this was the beginning of ARPS in Kansas City. Our parents bought us some ARRL study guides from Radio Shack and enrolled us in some study classes. At this point in my life my attention span wasn't great enough so I didn't pass my tests. A couple years later in Boy Scouts I became friends with a licensed ham that resparked my interest in radio, but for some reason I never further persued getting my license.

Many years later I accepted a position that required a lot of traveling across the state of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas. After around a year of this I stopped into the local radio store to pickup an antenna for my scanner the guy there talked me into picking up a study guide. Two weeks later I passed my Tech Test and was assigned my famous call of KD0FRT. Even though I was licensed and a fairly outgoing person I was still reluctant to talk on the radio. Scanning around the band I stumbled on a group of people talking about going to a Dairy Queen for a little get together. Something in their coversation prompted me to contribute which ended in Bob Kimbrell (W7KU, now W0AO) and Dave Rich (KG0US) extending an invitation to join at DQ in Raytown off 350 HighWay in Missouri.

It all went down hill from there I joined the Raytown Amature Radio Club where I gained exposure to HF via members and most notably Field Day. Exactly one year after I gained my Technician class license I tested for my General, then Extra. Didn't get the Extra, though Bob took me under his wing to become my Elmer which contributed to the Radio monster I've become

today. He sold me my first HF radio, a Yaesu FT-847 "all band, all mode" that needed a little bit of repair then got me interested in QRP, Kits, and everything else associated.

Spring 2010 I attended the Four States QRP convention where I won my very first kit radio- a Fort Tuthill FT-80 cw transceiver, which I've almost finished building. In May of 2010 I accompanied Bob to the Four Days in May QRP Convention along with the 2010 Dayton Hamvention, which was the first of very many to come! At the FDIM banquet I won an 40 meter receiver kit and a 2 meter CW source kit. Also purchased from their vender night a 30 meter QRSS Kit, a cw keyer and frequency readout display for my FT-80 kit. Spent nearly all of the first day wondering around the Flea Market area where I picked up my first 900mhz handheld radio, a Motorola MTX9000 along with a couple Motorola 110 watt VHF trunk mounted decks.

Adding more fuel to my QRP madness I bought a used Yaesu FT-817 portable QRP phone/cw radio which I've decided to rig up for some mobile operation. My very first contact using this setup with a Hustler Super20 meter resonator was J88CF to St. Vincent & The Grenadines! I made numerous attempts to contact some people a little more local without success, was even starting to think maybe I need to build a small 30 watt amp or something Not so much, eh?

So beware, if you're making a contact with me mobile it'll be at 5 watts. Even run my 847 at five watts just into a slightly larger antenna. :)

Making changes to the shack every day. Once I finally get the desk completed here I'll show the whole thing, this is only half of my desk with one of the three monitors.

Here's the Man behind the microphone in the mobile station. Also a work in progress and will update with pictures later!