Over half a century ago when I was 11 years old and living in Wahroonga (a suburb of Sydney), New South Wales, Australia, my Boy Scout Troop, 1st East Wahroonga, participated in the Jamboree on the Air. I remember getting my turn to talk on the radio of the sponsoring ham, talking to a station hundreds of miles away. After that experience, I was hooked on ham radio! It took a few years but I eventually got started in ham radio after my family returned to the U.S.A. after living in Australia for several years. My father was an engineer with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and was frequently transferred from one assignment to another in different parts of the globe.

I began my own personal ham radio hobby activities in 1969 at the age of 14 when I purchased and assembled my first piece of radio equipment, a Heathkit DX-60B transmitter. Later on I purchased a used National NC-300 receiver and erected some dipoles for 80 meters and 15 meters. I bought my equipment with money I had saved from my paper route proceeds. Two years later in February 1972, at the age of 16, I passed my Novice Class license test with the help of code classes given by the Mountain Amateur Radio Club in Cumberland, Maryland and was issued the callsign WN3UHK. February 2022 marked a half a century as a ham! Within a few months I upgraded to the Advanced Class and issued the callsign WA3UHK. By age 17 I had purchased and assembled a Heathkit HW-101 transceiver, getting on SSB for the first time. Finally, in 1985, I upgraded to Amateur Extra Class during the time when one of the requirements for the Extra Class was to send and receive Morse code at 20 words per minute. Licensed now for half a century, my hobby is still going strong.

Over the years I have owned and operated amateur radio stations in Maryland, West Virginia, California, New Mexico, Florida, Germany, the Philippines, Alaska, Ohio, Hawaii and Virginia. Most of these locations came as a result of my military career in the United States Air Force (USAF), and later as a civilian with the US Department of Defense, postings that took our family all over the world. Presently, I am a retired USAF officer (retired in November 2003) and I’ve been retired from my civilian job with the US Department of Defense since August 2017.

My previous callsigns: WN3UHK ~ 1972, WA3UHK ~ 1972 – 1983, WA3UHK/DU2 ~ 1982 – 1983, KF6ME/DU2 ~ 1983 – 1985, DA1JF ~ 1980 – 1982, KF6ME ~ 1983 – 1996, KF6ME/KL7 ~ 1987 – 1990, WV4M ~1996 – 2018, WV4M/KH6 ~ 1998 – 2002 and NH7L ~ 1998 – 2002.

In late 2012 and mid 2013, after 42 years as an amateur radio operator, I finally applied for and received my first ARRL DXCC and WAS awards. All the contacts were logged from my previous call, WV4M, in ARRL’s Logbook of the World.

I am currently active from Culpeper, Virginia and am a member of the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association. My radio shack includes a variety of rigs, mostly ICOM, and amps. I currently only have one antenna for HF, a MyAntennas.com EFHW-8010-2K. I have plans to install a 50 foot self-supporting tower topped with a Tennadyne T-8 log periodic antenna in the future. I have the tower and antenna sitting in my shed.

About the photo: I am the guy standing below the front cockpit. The ejection seat warning triangle is pointing at my head. This group photo was taken during the dedication of a F-105G Wild Weasel fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War era at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. The event was held on 23 September 2005. Most of the men pictured flew the F-105G or F-100F in Vietnam. This elite group of air warriors flew some of the most dangerous missions in modern warfare, seeking out and destroying enemy surface-to-air missile sites and anti-aircraft artillery batteries. Among the Vietnam War era Wild Weasel aviators were two Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, then Captain Merlyn Dethlefsen and Major Leo Thorsness. Their EWOs both earned the Air Force Cross. My military aviation experience came later during the cold war era between 1978 to 1987, flying in the F-4D and F-4E as a Weapon Systems Officer homebased in Florida and West Germany and the F-4G Wild Weasel as an Electronic Warfare Officer homebased in the Philippines and California. I also flew F4s on temporary duty (TDY) out of Spain, Turkey, England, Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

I hope to hear you on the air in the near future. 73 from Culpeper, Virginia, located 60 miles/97 kilometers southwest of downtown Washington, DC or 89 miles/148 kilometers southeast of my original home QTH of LaVale, Maryland.

73, Dick, NA3P