Biography

Greetings from Apollo Beach, Florida!

I have been licensed since 1992, first as a no-code Technician (oh, did the existing amateurs loathe us no-coders!) then upgrading to a General in 2003. My original call sign was N3OEA; however, I went for the vanity callsign W4RLS as it matched my region and initials. I was fortunate in that the other person who wanted W4RLS applied a day too late!

I have been working on my own logging program since 1988. I am always finding something to tweak or enhance. I recently added support to decode the UDP packets from JTDX and WSJT-X. While my opinion is indeed self-serving, I like my alert and tracking view better!

I use my logging program to upload to as many QSO confirmation services for which I can find APIs. I am currently writing code to support QRZCQ.

As I live in a deed-restricted community that bans all antennas, I am limited to employ temporary or stealthy antennas. I have a Yaesu ATAS-120 that I use as a stealth antenna, mounted in my attic crawlspace. I also have a loop antenna and a couple of MFJ and Shark hamstick antennas that I dare to use in my back-yard every so often, mounted to tripods.

This has to serve as the antithesis to every QRZ biography that features multi-element antennas atop 40' towers. Although I still am quite envious! Nonetheless, one can work most of the world with compromise antennas. (I still have never reached South Asia.)

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Yaesu FT-897D
Icom IC-705
Icom ID-31A