Biography

MOVED FROM WAYNE, NEW JERSEY TO CHRISTIANSTED, ST. CROIX USVI AS OF 3/7/2017.......
CALLSIGN CHANGED FROM WB2KQW WATO KP2CY FCC APPROVED AS OF APRIL 4, 2017........

Is Che smoking a Portela????

I am a Cuban/Puerto-Rican American on my Dad's side. My grandmother Maria was a Portela - the daughter of the owner of the famous Cuban and Puerto Rican cigar company Portela y Lomba and the later Portela y Cia - purveyors of fine leaf cigars to the Royal Spanish House.

My great granfather Jose Portela was small grower in Cuba. The Spanish were very ruthless when Cuba took up arms in the War for Cuba's independence. The Spanish burned the tobacco plantations in order to punish Cuba and deprive Cuba of export revenue. Forseeing the impending ruin of Cuba by the Spanish my great grandfather took seeds of the Cuban leaf from the Vuelta Abajo region of Cuba and emigrated to Puerto Rico where he formed a partnership with a financier named Lomba. Both complimented each other: my great grandfather knew alot about growing tobacco and Lomba knew alot about finance and investment. It was a highly successful operation.

However, the Spanish-American War ruined my great grandfathers business when U.S. tobacco monopolies in Puerto Rico crushed the native domestic cigarette and cigar markets forcing the native tobacco market to buy only U.S. tobacco products. In 1899 the American Tobacco Company caused the organization of the Porto Rican-American Tobacco Company, which forcibly took over my great grandfather's partnership business Rucabado y Portela,and forced him to sign covenants not to compete. These companies became consolidated in the late 1800’s as Puerto Rico Tobacco Corporation. That onerous entity survives today with the same name. They make "Don Collins" cigars. I tell everyone not to smoke them.

When I was little I remember my "Granma Custin" motioning for me to sit on her lap "come johnnie....come and sit here with me. I want to show you something". I remember "Granma Custin" as being a heavy set woman with large black framed eyeglasses with thick lenses and who walked slowly with a cane. I always remember her wearing a long black dress as was the custom in their culture for widowed Spanish women. Somewhat bashfully I approached the living room chair she was sitting in. She reached inside of her pocketbook and pulled out a small tin box. It was a gray faded box but still very much legible. On the face were the images of two heavily bearded men. I remember saying to my Granma Custin "Granma...do you have a cough?" Puzzled by this question she politely asked "why do you say that johnnie?". In my reply I stated "Granma...i take them too...it's a box of Smith Brothers..." My Granma laughed..."No johnnie. The one on the left is your great Grandpa...this is a small box of the cigarettes from when he had a big tobacco plantation in Puerto Rico....". I was deeply impressed. Through the years I have always kept that fond memory in the back of my mind...always wanting to find out more about my great grandfather's company. I wish I could find a small tin box like the one she had.


As a Cuban-American I support the 1959 Cuban revolution and want an end to the economic blockade, and assert my right as an American to come and go as I please - a right which I am denied by the current U.S. government travel ban on American citizens to freely travel to Cuba. These policies prevent better relations between the land of my ancestry and the United States of America. These policies need to change and I am active in getting those policies changed.

I am in the process of building a retirement home on my property in Estate Enfield Green St. Croix U.S.V.I. Currently I reside in a small apartment in Estate Montpellier with a lovely view of St. Thomas and Saint John in the distance from my kitchen window.

As a child I used to listen to SWL international broadcasts on a terribly designed cheap CB radio that seemed like it was a designed for intermod. The intermod actually worked in my favor and I was amazed at picking up Radio Moscow, Radio Sofia, Bulagaria, HCJB the "Voice of the Andes" etc. That was all I needed to stimulate my lifelong interest in radio. I always wanted to get my ham ticket but somehow a ham radio was not in the budget.

I was first licenced circa 1977 shortly after completing college. My "Elmer" was
Ed Solov WA1SOV who also lived in Wayne, NJ. Ed was a radar engineer working for
defense contractor Singer-Kearfott in Wayne, NJ. Ed was a great influence on me
and nurtured my interest in amateur radio. His mastery of the morse code at very
high speeds both scared me and amazed me. Scared because I knew I'd never learn to
receive that fast. That was it. I'd never see anything greater than a novice
ticket - if I was lucky. I dreaded the day I took my 5 wpm test. But Ed minutes
after I was tested in my sending beamed a smile at me as he was checking my notes
of my copy of his 5 wpm sending which I had completed a few minutes earlier. He
knew I had already passed the exam.

I purchased a Ramsey SX-20 10 watt PEP 20 meters only rig. Don't laugh. It was a
great rig. My antenna was a half wave dipole I made from some spare copper wire I
had left over from my SWL days. My first contact was a guy mobile on a road
between Montreal and Toronto ( VA3CMR ). The very next day I logged my first overseas contact I6EZB in Ascoli,Italy. I was ecstatic! Words cannot describe the feeling. It is what makes amateur radio what it is.

On a vacation trip to St. Croix, U.S.V.I. I strung my 20 meter copper wire dipole
around a sea grape shrub on the beach I was enjoying. I had been snorkeling all
day and it was 4:30 PM and the sun was going down. I found myself on the "DX" end
of the "247" DX net run by Alan formerly WA4JTK ( now a silent key) and logged in
as KP2/WB2KQW running 10 watts PEP from a beach in St. Croix. I caused a major
pileup! I owe alot of my DX contacts to the old 247 DX net and miss it. Alan would
always give me a break and was able to pull out the last two letters of my call in
the stateside pileup and get me on the list. I loved the island so much that i sunk all my $$ in a lot in what was then pretty much an undeveloped area. It is now a "gated community". The guy next to me has a 1.5 million dollar house with a swimming pool and the guy next to him has a 2 million dollar house. I guess I will be the "Jed Clampett" of the neighborhood with my planned $110,000 "Topsider" prefab home. Oh Well. Once I build and move I will become a permanent KP2.

Equipment

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