Biography

In 1963, in my hometown of Memphis, TN, I was twelve years old when I passed both the Novice and Technician exams the same day and was licensed with my first call, WA4PSV. I moved to St. Louis, MO in 1976 and I upgraded to the General class and was assigned the call WB0VWY, then after moving to Atlanta, GA in 1984, I became N4LZR and that's still my call sign.

Currently, I'm a Product Manager working for Oracle and have worked in the software/hardware technology industry for IBM, Amdahl, STK, EMC, Sequent and Ernst&Young. Technology and photography have always been hobbies but my degrees were a BS in Business Administration majoring in Economics and an MS majoring in Computer Science. (LinkedIn profile).

I now live in St. Louis City and operate from the ninth floor of an apartment building in the Central West End overlooking Forest Park and I sneak a dipole out the window. The dipole is composed of a pair of Hamsticks, (80m, 40m, 20m). I'm using a little Flex 6400 for HF and digital modes. I'm also experimenting with DMR, D-STAR, and Fusion using handhelds, PCs and hotspots

After I got a license my brother Mike followed and not to be outdone by his sons, our Dad got a license and became a consummate active Ham for life, achieving many DX awards and accolades. My brother Mike, (formerly WA4RPP and WA0ZRV has now adopted Dad's old call WA4RQD so Dad's legend lives on). Mike lives close by in Arnold, MO. Mike is using my Dad's, (Silent Key 'Steve' WA4RQD), TS-520SE hybrid which has been refurbished and works like a champ. I have since passed this rig on to brother Mke to get him back on the air.

When my Dad, Mike and I were all living together at home in Memphis, we used to share equipment and when we would check into the local 6M net, the net control would call 'the House of Hams' and the three of us would check in together - Great Memories :)

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

HF Transceivers:
Flex 6400
Elecraft KX3
Yaesu FT-891

VHF/UHF HT:
Icom ID-51 DSTAR
Yaseu FT2DR
AnyTone D868

Antennas:
Hustler BT4V vertical
Fan dipole 40, 20, 15, 10
Fab Dipole 30, 17, 12, 6