Biography

Hi, This is KM4FFX Oz in New Bern, North Carolina, USA, thanks for looking me up. (AKA: Oz, Ozzy, Bill)

I just got serious about radio in the fall of 2014 and have since passed my Tech and General. The Amateur Extra book may have slowed me down a bit, we'll see. By the way I'm 77 yrs old, late start! Unfortunate that I never did it until then, I could have had many years of entertainment by now and the energy to achieve so much more.

I decided to put the Amateur Extra book away for about a year and learn the radios and equipment I now have. Gain experience on air and reconsider at that time. I'm thinking perhaps this winter would be a good time to hit the books again. I doubt that I'll actually retain the technical material for long, but I don't think I'll be getting a Phd in physics either. I did buy and am 1/2 way thru online study program.

​I have little desire to build, repair or otherwise muck around inside the box on any of my electronic equipment. I guess those of you who have spent your lives doing just that would refer to me as an "appliance operator" and you would be correct. I plan to keep it that way. Contrarily I have just built a nice multiband 80,40,20,10 OCFD antenna ~135' up 40' that has greatly improved my tranceivers performance. I could trim to bring 15 in but I don't want to compromise primary bands.

For about a year now I have been enjoying PSK31 using the latest version of Ham Radio Deluxe and Digital Master 780, in the last few weeks I have expanded that to include Olivia, Contestia, RTTY, and a couple of contacts on MFSK and THOR. Actually each is done simply using HRD just as it is setup for PSK31.

​Since moving to New Bern, NC last fall I have found that the 2 meter & 70cm bands are far more practical here than in the mountains. I can readily utilize many repeaters covering a very large area. I have experienced crystal clear communications on those bands. Marine radio and my Uniden BCD436HP scanner likewise.

​ ​I have finally become more serious about logging my QSOs and I keep them up do date on LoTW and QRZ by regularly uploading from my HRD logbook.

​Last year I joined the NBARC and have been enjoying nightly rag chews on 2 meter band, and especially enjoyed working with JOTA recently..

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Some of my favorite links will be placed here so I can find them and pehaps they will be of use to others.

http://www.dxheat.com my fav when using phone mode. which I rarely do, hard to understand, bad ears!

http://www.w1wc.com If I ever come across any not listed at this fine website I'll enter below.

Equipment

Primary HF

Transceiver: Yaesu FTDX 3000, usb interface to computer

Power supply: Alinco DM-330FX

Computer: Dell Studio XPS 435T, 12.0 GB RAM, 64bit OS and Widows 10Pro.

Yaesu MD-100 Microphone