Member Bio

If “OnAir” shows FT-847 will probably be voice but can be FT-8 on 2m & 6m. If FT-747 it will only be HF FT-8. Watch the frequencies.

For my Amateur Radio Bio: My High School homeroom (and Science) teacher (& also doubled as my Elmer) in the 1970’s was WA2DUF (Mamaroneck HS club sign) Jason Eberhart (KD7KY) who is a silent key now (and School call has since been re-assigned to a friend of mine) and the school was sporting a beautifully maintained Drake TR-4C (not -w) with the matching L-4B Amp into a 6-element Mosley CL-36-M tribander with a HAM IV on guyed 40′ tower on the roof of the High School that just peaked my interest. When asked “What was the furthest contact that you have reached?” He replied, “Hawaii with an S9.” I then replied, “I can do that from my car in the parking lot on my CB.” (With a 108″ whip on the trunk & just a little “help” of course.) To which he replied, “But I was pointing East-Northeast at the time.” Then, I was hooked. Basically, the long way around. With an S9! Nice. You can insert some Tim Allen grunting, before it was invented, here. Soon after that, he let me operate with him, and then he gave me the Extra Class written exam (He was Advanced at the time,) and I passed the written while still in 11th grade. Do you remember the first time you ever keyed a Shure mic with a pair of 3-500Zs behind it making a full KW output into some Horizontal Elements that far up? I learned pretty fast how to manually Tune everything up. Everything had tubes, except the Ham IV rotator and the PSU. The best part, we didnt pay the 220V electric bill directly. But on the downside, way back then, you needed, I believe, 20WPM code for the Extra Class “ticket.” That was NOT an option for my brain for RX. Forget the brain-hand coordination part additionally for TX. Just Not Happening for even FIVE WPM. Since then, I’ve confirmed that the school call has been reassigned in 2015 to a friend of mine who also has that old equipment when Mr. E. retired, and I do appreciate that call stayed with all that Drake equipment, – Hi Evan!) So, years go by, I find and buy the Yaesu FT-747GX for a steal at $150 used back in 1996, then bought and put the $80 (at the time,) FM board in myself. Meanwhile earlier, I had graduated from DeVry, and am an Engineering Technician by trade at that point, and get to do all my OWN work under a licensed TECHs supervision. More years go by, to 2014, and finally I was convinced by a friend to go take the tests for myself now that there was no code, there were no more excuses. The breakover point for me was that we went to a local Hamfest in July 2014 and he won a Baofeng UV-5RA as a door prize. He already had one, so I got the 2nd one as a gift from him. What a Teaser! ANOTHER radio that I can’t use legally. (See Pirate sounds below.) Confident that I had already passed the Extra test back in the 70’s, I was pretty much guaranteed at least a TECH, and sure of passing the GEN test by now. I logged on here on QRZ with just a screenname, and started practicing Tech and GEN for a few weeks. Then in August went to take what I thought was just the Tech then Gen tests. Aced the Tech, and missed just a few on the Gen and passed it also. At that point the VEC pretty much insisted I take the EXTRA exam, as I had already paid for it. I told him that first off, I had not studied for it, and secondly, I didn’t bring a calculator for computing any of the formulas. So, I took the Extra test and missed passing by only FOUR questions. WithOUT a calculator! I sounded like a pirate for the rest of that day… ARRRGGHHHHH. I think most people in that situation would have joined me and sounded like one also. So now, my screen name has been changed to my callsign and here I am, finally a General class operator with two finally useable, if-only, “baby” radios on most bands : 10M, (11M, shush, & not on this equipment either,) 12, 15, 17, 20, 40, maybe I can tune 80 & 160 possibly, and also 2M & 70cm operation “F’now”. Nothing longer, higher, or in-between yet. I am not too proud to take donations. (tiny hint..) Hopefully the station has improved a bit since then.