Biography

First licensed in Wichita Falls, TX on 1971-June-15 as a novice station - WN5EUC. It expired on 1973-June-15 when I upgraded to Advanced (callsign WB5EUC). My Grid Locator in WF, TX was EM03ru (WB5EUC has always been my callsign and it has never lapsed or ceased to be valid.)

Graduated university in Wichita Falls in 1979 (2nd degree) and moved that summer to Duncan, OKLA to work for Halliburton Services. I only operated VHF in Duncan and did not keep a log there. During 1980, I move from Internal Audit to Foreign Accounting. I was sent to Rio de Janerio, Brazil as the District Accountant. I arrived in Rio on Dec. 1st, 1980. On 1981-March-02, I was issued a Class A-Brazilian Radioamador Licenca of PY1ZEL which was valid until 1987-October-05. However, I left Brazil on 1982-June-03 - arriving back home in Amarillo, TX on 1982-June-04. The Grid locator for my location in Rio is GG87ja.

From 1982-June-04 to 1985-December-16 I operated on an Advanced Class ticket. My Extra Class ticket was dated effective 1985-Dec-17 (and I have held this license to the present). However, my locations have changed. My location in Amarillo, TX from 1982-June-04 to 1993-March-03 was in Randall County of Texas. Grid Locator of DM95ae. I moved to another location in Amarillo early in 1993. I revised my location with the FCC and got a license from 1993-March-30 to 2003-March-30 - still in Amarillo - but in Potter County of Texas. This Grid Locator wss DM95be.

I left Amarillo, TX around mid-August, 1993 to live and work in the city of Cherkassy, Ukraine. Because I was living their (not just visiting for a short period of time), I was told that I could request a Ukrainian call sign. I showed the licensing person (also a ham) my Extra Class license and he asked me to demonstrate sending CW. Passed that and he asked me what call sign I wanted. I was a bit surprised and asked for US5CQ. He told me that would be fine BUT it would not be valid until 1994-01-01. So I began DXing from the city of Cherkassy in Ukraine as US5CQ a few seconds after New Years 1994 from one of the club stations. Later, I had a radio sent to me so I could work from an apt in Cherkassy. When I got married in Nov. 1994 - we set up a station in our dacha(village house) where most of my amateur radio operations would take place. When active in the city of Cherkassy, the grid locator was KN69ak. As I mentioned, most of my activity was from the village of Moshny (approx. 19.2 miles from Cherkassy) and the grid locator for Moshny is KN59um. My last operation from Ukraine as US5CQ was 1999-Feb-28, when my family moved to the US and settled in the state of Georgia (city of Lawrenceville).

When my WB5EUC license was coming up for renewal, I revised my location on the renewal license to our address in Lawrenceville, GA. I did not have an radio equipment and was off the air - but I keep the license valid with the expectation of getting back on the air. We eventually moved from Lawrenceville, GA to just East of Athens, GA. The mailing address is in Winterville, GA (but we are not in the city limits of Winterville). The Grid Locator for THIS location is EM84ia.

I am working on getting back on the air before the end of 2017 from here at EM84ia.
I visited my birth mother and step dad in New Mexico in 2013, 2015 and I'm going out there again for several days in November 2017. My step dad is WA5DEJ. I worked stations from my step-dad's location in Belen, NM in Nov. 2015 and I have loaded them into LoTW. Still have a long way to go to get everything loaded (both there and here).

My next trip to NM will start in November, with various stops along the way, but I will operate from there again this time. My step-dad is giving me an Icom 718, a Cushcraft R7 and some other items for me to set up my ham station here at my present location.

Equipment

Waiting to bring back and set up the gear my step-dad is giving me. The plan is to be on-the-air in December, 2017.

Well, everything is here in Georgia now - but only VUF / UHF is operational. The 2M rig is the FT-212RH (lo pwr is 6 watts and high pwr is 45 watts). UHF is only on a dual band hand held FT-470. Also have a Realistic 2m handheld.

Not on HF YET... R7 is still not put back together and not installed... YET. I blame winter for my delay in getting the HF antenna up... but hope to have it up soon.