Member Bio

First licensed in 2000, I was involved with the 911 WTC disaster with work and Amateur radio. I guess it all started when I was ten years old. I saw a radio that looked cool in an antique store.

I remember telling my dad about it. He said what are you going to do with it. I didn’t know. All I knew was that it looked cool, with a lot of knobs and a big meter in the center.

It was a Hammarlund HQ-170, Big grey and full of tubes that glowed a cool color and heated up space where we set it up quite well. I was amazed at what I heard. Even with the smallest hunk of wire, I could hear stuff. So I got my dad to help me, and we put about 200 feet of wire in the trees. WOW, what a difference. I would hear stations from all over the world. Down the road was a huge windmill tower with a huge antenna on it. I was curious, so I went and knocked on the door. To my surprise, I got a tour of a huge Ham station. The basement wall was lined with big amplifiers with massive tubes and meters on front of them. I was hooked.  I remember when he made contact with a South African station and then told me to say hello to the other station. When the other station said hello back, that was it. I knew I wanted to get into this great hobby.  As with many people, life got in the way, so it was always on my mind, but when I meet a bunch of members from the Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club and started learning all about amateur radio. Then in the year 2000, I took the test and never slowed down.

 I am now the president of  The Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club, which is a fully rounded club that does everything from Repeaters, contesting, DXing, Kit building, and everything else we are a very active club. We are very strong with public service and emergency communications. Our club has been in QST for our work during superstorm Sandy which hit our area very hard. Our field day station has been rocking the air in the 5F category and is always high in the rankings. We were a 6F one-year ICOM supplied all the radios. WOW, that IC 7851 was awesome, as well as the 7800 7700, 7600 7410, and 9100. Thanks to Ray Novack for hooking us up. We had a blast, and Will from ICOM was great. He spent the wet weekend with us on Long Island. No worries, we had a great dinner on Friday before field day. As always, our killer BBQ chef did not let us down K2BBQ, and his call says it all.

Check out our club on the Web at www.gsbarc.org. If you live on Long Island, I welcome you to our open houses on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons to see all the info on our website. Due to construction at our EOC where we meet, we are on Zoom copy and paste that to join our general meetings on the last Thursday of the month. 

As the EC/RO for the Town of Babylon, I am proud of the team of always-ready operators. We all take great pride in serving the Town of Babylon, residents in times of emergency and at public service events. 

We are on Dstar on 20A. Our repeater is W2TOB 440.250. Give us a call on Dstar. 

My QRZ lookup count has exploded over the last few years due to my QSL card on the LAST MAN STANDING tv show

Once again, thank you to everyone that has looked me up on QRZ. I hope to work  you all on the air HF or Dstar. As I said, if you’re on Long Island, check out GSBARC

IN 2014 I received the ARRL Section Managers award  

Then  in 2015, Is selected as the amateur of the year for 2015 in the NLI section in the Hudson Division 

Never ever did I think that I would have such a positive influence on ham radio

Over the last ten years, our field day has ranked number one in our class, section, and division  6F  3 SSB 3 CW stations

two towers six dipoles, and we have a blast, not to mention a great BBQ

Just a reminder if you are on Long Island, stop by and check us out every Saturday. We have an open house, please check out our website for the details www.gsbarc.org  

My Hf station is back on the air after a hot water Convector split open above the shack while I was away I want to thank the crew that helped me KD2ADC ED, W2JGH  JOHN, KC2SYF MIKE,  K2TV BOB, AB2ZI KEVIN IF IT WASN’T FOR THOSE MEMBERS I WOULD HAVE LOST EVERYTHING THEY WERE THERE TO SALVAGE MY EQUIPMENT AND WERE A MAJOR PART OF THE REBUILDING OF THE BASEMENT AND MY SHACK.   

GSBARC MEMBERS ARE THE BEST, ALWAYS WILLING TO HELP OUT ANYONE WHO NEEDS HELP. THAT’S WHY OUR CLUB IS GROWING LIKE CRAZY, I GUESS          

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A GREAT FIELD DAY, COME ON OVER TO OUR SITE SAME PLACE FOR 49 YEARS 

THE ADDRESS IS

200 EAST SUNRISE HIGHWAY

NORTH LINDENHURST, NEW YORK

EVERYONE IS INVITED TO TAKE PART IN THE GSBARC FIELD DAY

SO IF YOUR VISITING LONG ISLAND THE LAST WEEKEND IN JUNE, COME ON BY AND SAY HI

CHECK OUT OUR CLUBS  WEATHER STATION

LOCATED AT THE  TOWN OF BABYLON EOC

https://tempestwx.com/station/16628/grid

Would you like to be part of our general membership meetings

Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club is inviting all of you to our scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club’s GENERAL  MEETING
Time: This is a recurring meeting. Meets Last Thursday of the month

Join Zoom Meeting

copy and paste into your browser
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4992515313?pwd=VjBTTVVkQi9aZmNRemN5ZVpmRDQ5QT09

Meeting ID: 499 251 5313
Passcode: GSBARC

Meeting ID: 499 251 5313
Passcode: GSBARC
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+19292056099,,4992515313#,,,,*530302# US (New York)
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Dial by your location
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Meeting ID: 499 251 5313
Passcode: 530302

A new feature in My shack

HAMSHACK HOTLINE   W2HCB    6100000922

73 W2HCB JOHN MELFI 

PRESIDENT GSBARC

RADIO OFFICER  TOWN OF BABYLON 

EMERGENCY COORDINATOR TOWN OF BABYLON

ADEC SUFFOLK COUNTY NY