I was first licensed at age 11 in 1963 as KN3VOT, a few years after my dad received K3SJK. My ham activities are mostly directed toward building and experimenting.

After my novice year I upgraded to Technician and spent a few years on 6 meter AM. Later, in high school, the DX bug bit and I upgraded to General and then to Advanced, concentrating my operating time on 40, 20 and 15 meter CW. During this time I was active in two local radio clubs, the Susquehanna Valley Amateur Radio Club and the Shamokin (PA) Radio Club. I upgraded to Extra in 1988 and held the call NG3R until vanity licensing allowed me to re-obtain K3VOT.

After high school I attended the Pennsylvania State University receiving a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1974. Following graduation I held a few odd jobs and spent one summer working for Hughes Aircraft Co in Los Angeles, CA. returning to Penn State in 1976 to pursue a master's degree.

In 1978 I accepted employment with Greenray Industries in Mechanicsburg, PA where I began to learn the art and science of designing and building crystal oscillators. In 1980 I moved to State College, PA and accepted employment with EMF Systems. While at EMF I designed a wide range of oscillator products literally spanning the frequency range from DC to light. These included crystal oscillators, phase-locked oscillators, frequency synthesizers, wideband VCO's, DRO's, crystal filters and receiver multicouplers.

Since 1992 I have been employed by Murata Electronics in the crystal oscillator department where I am currently Engineering Manager. I am a member of IEEE, ARRL and the Nittany Amateur Radio Club.

My present installation consists of: 2) 500 foot long wires, N-S and E-W; a 500 foot perimeter horizontal loop, 40 meter vertical; 6 meter yagi and a few 2 meter antennae. For a rig I have a Ten-Tec Trition IV with transverters for 6 and 2 and various, constantly evolving, homebrew equipment.

My technical interests are: building and experimenting with frequency sources of all types; low-noise receiving techniques; sub-noise floor communications; unique filtering solutions; DSP and the integration of computers with radio.