Biography

I got into Shortwave radio about 1956 with a Hallicrafters receiver given to me by my grandfather who was an avid BBC fan. I lived all over the country as an Air Force brat and then joined the Army in 1967 supporting infantry and armor as an engineer mechanic in the 267th Petroleum Company, Ft. Lee, Va, 707th Maintenance Co in Camp Casey, Korea, and D Co., 127th Maintenance, Ft. Hood, Texas. I then started as a full time technician for the Oklahoma Army National Guard in 1971 in the 205th Signal Company. After 21 years exited as a Battalion Comm Chief and COMSEC custodian for the 120th Medical Battalion.

I went to Region 6, FEMA MERS (Mobile Emergency Response Support) in Denton, Texas for 10 years as a comm spec doing radio telegraphy and other modes on the HF and VHF at earthquakes, hurricanes and floods around the country. I led the tests of Clover 2000, Pactor/GTOR modes to be adopted by FEMA but left before anything was implemented.

I left FEMA in 1999 and worked as the communications tech/manager for the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms offices in Dallas,Houston and Detroit divisions and engineered and installed repeaters and fixed/mobile/handheld radios primarily in Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, but traveled to all other areas to help out with big changes like the conversion to APCO 25 modes.

I retired in 2008 with 41 years of government service and now live on 5 acres in N. Texas. I mostly concentrate on the digital modes and am getting back into QRP with an HB1B and a newly acquired Xiegu X5105, which seems to be a super little radio. I planned on being a full time RVer when I retired but the wife allowed as to how that wasn't going to happen, but I still travel with the QRP rigs and both a tunable loop and a BuddiPole antenna in the vehicles anyway. Most campgrounds were unsuitable for a wire antenna and I never could eliminate the stray RF on 40m above about 20 watts anyway.

Equipment

The main radio here is a Vertex Standard VX-1700 which is perfect for my type of operation and an Icom IC-7000 on an end fed wire for backup and Yaesu FTM-400DR's in the vehicles as well as GMRS in the vehicles and my Kawasaki Mule for around the place. I put in a small GMRS repeater, WQYX855, in the garage.

My preferred digital mode is Olivia, which seems to be far and away better than anything we used back in the FEMA days, although I think GTOR, Clover 2k and Pactor were awesome, but I guess nobody uses them anymore, which is a shame. I spend almost all of my radio time with Region 6 Army MARS.