Biography

got interested in ham radio as a teen ,constructed a sw radio receiver from knight kit ,ran on a long wire antenna , about 1965 got my first cb radio a benton harbor lunchbox
single channel radio, then a knight kit cb with tunable receiver....graduated to ssb with a pearce simpson 23 ...built a 5 tube amplifier from scratch ,put up a 5 element horizontal beam from mosely worked many skip stations on the 11 meter band at the time
spent 23 yrs as a data communications tech at the university of illinois and retired there ...finally decided to get my ham ticket and studied hard for both my tech and general exams and passed both at the same time ...and here we are....

Equipment

running a icom 7300 for hf ....a ranger 2950 for 10 and 11 meters into a sigma eurocomm
hf sx 80 vertical antenna at 20 ft elevation with a mfj945e tuner and 100w amp from palomar ...
recently upgraded power amp and antenna to an als 600 amp from ameritron and a hi power version
of the sx80 sigma eurocomm and a 962d tuner from mfj gives around a 550 to 600 w pep ...making
contacts much easier....