A long time ago, when the earth was new, I came home from the Post Office with an envelope addressed to KNØVIZ - wow! that must be me!! Within minutes I was up in the attic shack warming up the WRL Globe Chief and Hallicrafters SX99. In the winter they helped heat the attic but in summer it was hot, so the window was open and I operated into the wee hours every night that summer while slapping at the mosquitoes with one hand and trying to send and copy CW with the other. That was near the peak of the legendary Sunspot Cycle 19 and the DX was there; even with only 75 watts input and a couple crystals.

Near the end of my novice year, I passed my Conditional exam (dropped the N as we used to say). My dad and I were the only two hams in our whole north central S. Dak. county as long as we lived there.Since then, I've upgraded from the old "mail-order license" and Dad has gone SK.

I've tried many facets of ham radio. My main interest has been weak signal VHF/UHF. My best DX on 2 meters so far is about 1670km on Au and 2081km on Es. I also like to work a little HF DX and operate (not competitively) in some of the VHF and HF contests.

Of necessity, my stations have always tended to be small and low powered. Right now, typically, I'm using a Ten-Tec OmniV or a Yaesu FT-757gx on HF and a Kenwood TS-790A or maybe my venerable IC-251 with 100W bricks and simple antennas. So if you happen to work me, I'll be running  under 100W  into single Yagis on VHF/UHF and a vertical or a wire loop on HF.

I changed careers a few times starting as a high school American History & Government teacher in South Dakota and eventually retiring from Xerox as an EMC Engineer.

Mary is my wife of 43 years and we have a daughter, who is a Vet Tech at a small animal clinic.

That's my story and I'm stick'in to it. 73, Peter, KØVIZ