Biography

I'm a television news professional born in San Antonio, TX on November 17, 1945. I was first licensed as a Novice in 1960 as KN5CKV. I was KC5UP (Advanced Class) when my vanity call of KK5DON was approved in May of 1999. I passed the Amateur Extra exam in June of 2006 at HamCom in Dallas, TX.

My wife, Phyllis, passed her Technician class license test on September 16th, 2006 and is now KE5KNE.

Professionally, I was a rock-'n-roll disc jockey in the 60's and, after U.S. Army service in Germany (1968) and Vietnam (1969), I went into television news as a television reporter and anchor at WFTV in Orlando, Florida.

Since 1982 I've worked as a television news cameraman and video editor on a freelance basis for the major network news and magazine shows based in New York City. I've been an eyewitness to history over the years. I've traveled with George H.W. Bush in the '84 and '88 Presidential campaigns and with Bill Clinton in '92. I was onboard Air Force II with the elder Bush when AFII went into a dive to avoid a mid-air with a light plane in 1984. I was not strapped in!

I was the daytime camera at the Branch Davidian stand-off in Waco for CBS News and went through the eye of Hurricane Hugo in a wood-frame house on the waters edge in Charleston, NC for NBC News. I was at the Mexico City earthquake for NBC in 1985 and I was in the second quake that hit that city. It measured 7.3 on the Richter scale.

I returned to doing radio (part time) in October of 2000 by doing a weekend airshift at KVIL radio in Dallas, TX for two years followed by weekend radio news anchor in Dallas at KRLD Radio and went on to host a morning trucking show on Sirius satellite radio and anchoring radio newscasts here in Dallas.

In addition to amateur radio my hobbies include riding the newly redesigned 2018 Honda Goldwing Tour DCT, Macintosh computers, flying airplanes (commercial license with instrument rating, though I'm inactive), close-up magic with a straight deck of cards, and playing some guitar. I quit riding a motorcycle in 2021. I miss that a lot!

See my portfolio at www.DonSmith.TV

See me trying to rescue a drowning puppy while shooting mid-west flooding for CBS News in New York.
This video, along with four other cuts by online media companies with my permission, have been seen nearly 80-million times!

DrowningPuppy.com

Hear my podcast episodes about my adventures in shooting news for network newsrooms in New York:
TheMostExclusiveClub.com

See my YouTube channel at
TexasTwoLane.com

See website at
NewsVideo.com

Equipment

Yaesu FTdx10