Biography

Our house burned in 2018 and I am finally about ready to get back on the air.  Yup, we lost everything except the clothes on our backs.  Folks, if you've never experienced this, I'll tell you -- you don't want to!!!  Over 40 years of memories, heirlooms, and antiques gone in a moment.  Fortunately, no human injuries (we weren't home) but lost two furbabies.  The volunteer fire departments (there were five of them) that responded did the best they could to no avail.  They used approximately 20,000 gallons (75,700 litres) of water from their tankers, in addition to drawing water from our pond via a pumper truck.  Our deepest thanks to each of these wonderful individuals who responded to the call. 

I've been interested in radio communication since the late 1960's. I became seriously interested in amateur radio while assigned to the US Army War College in Carlisle PA in 1988. Later, (I think was late summer 1988) an Army MARS conference was held at Carlisle Barracks and one of the US Army Signal Corps guys "hoodwinked" me into assisting. That's really all it took.

I retired from the Air Force in 1993 after over 20 years service and remained in Carlisle until my children graduated high school. While in Carlisle, I was active on 2m/440 and learned a lot from my Elmer -- Bill, W3MXD (SK).

Really haven't been active on HF until late summer 2016 and have been on the air as often as possible, usually on weekends.

There's just something about old tube radios that makes the experience of talking with someone so much more enjoyable. Granted, today's equipment is nice, but knowing you have to do more than turn on the power, select the frequency, and hit the PTT button, gives a certain degree of satisfaction that I think is missing with the new rigs.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

My shack consists of:

Alinco DX-70 (my mobile unit)

Drake TR-3

Drake TR-4

Heathkit HW-101

Kenwood TS-450Sat

Kenwood TS-690Sat

Kenwood TS-940Sat

G5RV antenna at about 20 feet (6m) above ground