Member Bio

I have always been facinated by radio.  Had my first crystal set when I was a young boy.  This began my interest in anything electronic.  I have always had a knack for tearing things apart and putting them back together.  I was interested in CBs in the 70s and 80s.  I had quite the station and mobile set up back then. My wish was to become a ham operator after I took a field trip in high school with one of my teachers.  He ended up becoming my elmer.  WA4FJB was his call and so I got it to honor him.  Went on to college and became a DJ and Station operator of sorts.  Ran the university station and did a stint on an AM daytimer in Blacksburg, VA…WKEX1430. Graduated in 1985 and jumped straight into Broadcast.  Ended up as an engineer and technician for Uncle Sam.  It pays the bills.   I am finally making my way through the ham universe and became a Technician on June 30, 2022.  Field Day.  Go figure.  I have a small station but am very intersted in adding on. Current rig is an  IC-7300 and an end fed 73′ wire antenna from MyAntennas.com  Pretty basic but it does the job.  Looking to add a 2m/70cm rig to the shack as well as a vertical.  Should be fun on Net nights to work it from my chair instead of outside on the porch with my HT.  Looking forward to upgrading to General after some more studying.  That should be a blast!  Hope to catch you on the air. RIght now I’m working 10m 28.391Mhz, give us a shout! 73!  I will send QSL cards to anyone who asks!  Please email using QRZ email and I will send mine out when I receive yours!!  Currently waiting on my LOTW activation card but after I receive it I will be on LOTW!!

UPDATES

Have purchased several 2m/70cm rigs.  One for the car and one for the shack!

LOTW has been activated!

Passed General TODAY 6-4-2023!!! working lots of digital modes !!! 

AV / Broadcast Engineer 32 years.

Piano/Keyboards

Building and playing guitars

Wood working

Photography

Auto Repair

Pen Making

Building electronics

Experimenting with SBCs and Unix/Linux

swiftkick51@gmail.com

My QSL Card.  That is  The Falls Church.  What my city was named after. Its very closeby so I snapped a cellphone pic for my card.

My very modest shack (Summer 2022) There is some old 11m gear there and a Stryker 955HPC for 10m –Old school Thunderbolt 101 10-11m tube amp!! Homebrew 100 amp power supply on the right. Its a switching unit constructed from (2) 50amp Mega-Watt supplies.

Getting my new Ed Fong Tri-band J-Pole ready to install on the mast!

J-Pole final installation.  That was not easy to do alone!  I was very sore the next day!  Also that’s the mounting spot for my 73′ EFLW from My Antennas.  It goes over to a tree in the back yard and is about 60′ up at the end in sloper fashion but I hadn’t strung it up in this picture yet.

Another couple shots for perspective of the antennas.  Its hard to see where the wire goes but it ends up in the huge oak.

My work bench.  A bit messy but it does the job.  Built many projects here and will do many many more!!

A couple clocks I built from a project I found online from SDG Electronics in the UK.

I really like how the case for this green one came out.  I plan on using them in the shack for Eastern Time and UTC.

The operating position with new gear (FTM-100DR) 11-20-22

I am a passionate Washington Capitals fan!! Win or lose that’s my team.  To me its the best sport there is!! Ever.

That’s me in the summer of 2022 at the camp exhibition game.  After waiting 5 years I finally got my favorite player from the Cup run to sign my jersey!!  I’m constructing a shadow box for it to hang on the wall for posterity!!  Yeah.  Brooksy!!! What a ‘D’ Man!!!

I like playing live music and yes that is an accordion.

Old Band pictures

I love airplanes and aviation.

One of my first guitar builds on the bench…

Finished product on the right.  I built both of the orange ones and bought the other one…

Custom Les Paul from Joe’s Guitars in Cali.

Two more home builts.  These were custom to my spec and made by the incredible luthier Paul Slingerland of Slingerland Guitars out of

Fairfax, VA

Couple shots of the White House Briefing room when my company re worked the Systems in there. I got dust on my shirt from crawling around in the pool.  The press breifing room is constructed over what was a swimming pool that FDR had installed.  The last President to use it was Kennedy.  Nixon had a floor installed over top of the drained and cleaned out pool for the press corps.  All the equipment is down there under the floor.  It gets shallow at one end so you have to crawl to reach stuff.  And yeah, its dirty.