My father, W5DFS, became a ham in 1960 and I remember helping him build antennas, solder PL-259's as well as listening to all the QSO's on the Heathkit Mohawk receiver. I became a ham in 1965 when I was in the 8th grade and had a great time on 40 and 15 CW with a Johnson Adventurer and a Hallicrafters S-40B receiver modified with a Collins 1 khz mechanical filter. I have maintained a regular 80M phone schedule with my father since about 1975 and you can still find us Monday and Thursday evenings starting about 8:30 central time somewhere below about 3850. A few years ago my younger brother got licensed and now he joins us along with various friends from over the years as well as whoever else wanders by. Often an old college buddy joins in and he and I along with whoever breaks in may be ragchewing until the small hours of the morning.

I am retired and have been a volunteer supporting AMSAT satellite efforts in various ways for roughly 25years. Today I help run the 20M International AMSAT Information net on 14.282 Mhz starting around 1800Z each Sunday and ocassionallyhelp build portions of the satellites. It is a lot of fun and very challenging work and requires a very large team of dedicated volunteers to get these projects completed.

I enjoy some light DX'ing and contesting and am working to get more involved in these areas. I mostly operate a Flex 5000 transceiver driving an Alpha 78 amp. At present all HF antennas are wire dipoles but I have plans for some new gain antennas and a major station re-organization. I am the Secretary/Treasures of the Southern Arizona DX Association and am involved with many of the other local radio clubs including the Catalina Radio Club and the Radio Society of Tucson.

Other hobbies include or have included scuba diving, flying (ask about flying a 172 around Australia sometime), formal pistol shooting and astronomy.