Biography

Hi and welcome to my bio. My name is "Wayne" even though my license say Wendel which is my first name i prefer "Wayne", Have been married to "Peggy" for 34 years. We have three daughter's and four Grandsons and three Granddaughters. I have been licensed for 6 years as of January 19th of 2016 . Currently hold a general class license. Have been interested and around the radio hobby for the last 30 or 35 years. I value each and every qso that i have because i feel so blessed in being a part of this great hobby. So if you have read this far. That means we have made a contact and i thank you for taking the time to have a qso with me.

On a more personal note. We have a granddaughter who was diagnosed with a brain tumor last year on December 17th. On December 19, 2014 they removed the tumor and got all of it out thankfully and in January of 2015 she started chemo and radiation therapy She is only 8 years old and no child should ever have to go though this. The amazing thing is she has smiled all the way though this experience and hasn't let it get her down. She has been an inspiration for many and has impressed us with her strength throughout this whole ordeal. She will finish her maintenance chemo in February 2016 and we can not wait for that day to come! This past year hasn't been a pleasant one on many levels.

Britney rang the bell 2/13/2016 to signify the end of her chemo treatments! Thx everyone who has sent well wishes for Britney. No more hospital stays and everything that goes with them! It means a lot to us all! God is Great!

I also upload all my contacts to my account at eqsl.cc which is a really nice site to use for eqsl's . So please consider signing up there and uploading your logs as i could really use the contacts as I'm chasing the eWAS award at this time. I also on this date 12/15/2015 got LOTW figured out and uploaded all of my qso's to it as well. I upload to the following QRZ,Eqsl (AG),hrdlog,clublog,LOTW.

Been working PSK-31 hard on 40m and just now have JT-65 and have been making contacts using it. Having fun, i so love this hobby :) So for now i have a wire dipole up that i use for 80m and 40m. My Solorcon MAX-2000 vertical is being used on 10m/12m/15m/17m .You can usually catch me on one of those bands running jt-65 0r jt-9.



One of my other passions was trying to save the legendary historic Goldenrod Showboat. I started with the project to save the boat which was built in 1909, in or around 2010. I served as a caretaker of the boat for a number of years before being promoted to lead caretaker in December of 2014. We assembled a crew of caretakers in January of 2015. We held work days aboard the boat and events and Fundraisers trying to save this boat that was on the registry of national historic landmarks. Due to flooding on the Illinois river in the summer of 2015 and the mishandling of moving the boat. The hull of the boat was damaged and it was decided that the whole boat could not be saved. Instead it was decided to remove the historic pieces of the boat to preserve them for future display in a river museum. On September the 13th of 2015 i resigned as lead caretaker of the boat after having a major difference of opinion on how the project was being handled. What i had devoted many volunteer hours to in restoration preservation of the boat turned into a salvage operation. That's not what i had signed up for in the beginning and i was crushed by the failure of those in charge. To make sure that the boat was safety moved to a better location. As i saw the salvage operation begin i could not stand by and see the boat i so dearly loved being stripped of its soul.Yes, i know a boat isn't a living and breathing thing hi hi. It was a sad day but I'm proud of what i tried to accomplish is save this legendary historic floating theater that had been though so much since being built. If you want to learn more about the Goldenrod Showboat here is a link so you can learn more about this historic vessel that once traveled from river town to river town providing live entertainment back before motion pictures.

Read more about the Goldenrod Showboat by clicking the link if you are interested in more information on the showboat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldenrod_%28showboat%29

I was elected the President of the Twin Rivers Amateur Radio Club located in the County of Pike Illinois and the City of Pittsfield in April of 2014. Our club was formed on April 9th of 2014 and we continue to slowly get ourselves established. To learn more about our club you can find us on Facebook by searching for Twin Rivers Amateur Radio Club. We have an information page and a group page and both are open to anyone wanting to find out more about us.We are a small rural club and i believe at last count we have 47 licensed amateurs in the Pike County Illinois area. You can find out more about us by following these links! We just got a webpage on the net and it is under development at this time. So a lot of the information on the club as not been entered as of this time.Our group page is open to any one so please stop by and say hi.

http://www.trarc.club

https://www.facebook.com/trarc

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1456458221237860/

We also hold a simplex net every Thursday Night at 8:30PM on the frequency of 146.465 known as the Twin Rivers Amateur Radio Club Simplex Net which begin originally in September of 2013 simply as the 146.465 simplex net.The name was changed the day after we formed the club. I'm normally net control for the simplex net along with KC9YYM Gilbert as back up co net control op as well as our other backup net control op Fred KC9BXE.

There is also a Twin Rivers Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Net held under the club name every Thursday Night at 8:00PM on the frequency of 146.625 with a 103.5 tone and a - offset. This net is held on the repeater of the Hannibal Mo Amateur Radio Club and has been for many years. It was formerly the Pike County Illinois ARES Net until recently. Net control for the TRARC Emergency Preparedness Net is Wayne KC9RFO. If you are ever in the Pike county and surrounding area we have a repeater on the air. It can be found on 145.430 with a - offset and a 103.5 tone. Give us a shout there is always some one monitoring the repeater and we would love to talk to you. At some point in the future we would like to have echolink integrated into the repeater as well.
Our club recently filed for a club call sign. We got KD9FSH for a random club call sign. We have since filed for a vanity club call and awaiting the results of that filing!We were granted the vanity club call of W9TRA on 4/16/2016 :)



Recently got on HF, was fortunate enough to buy a new Kenwood TS-2000 MC-60 Microphone and dual sp-23 speakers. My wire dipole cut for 40 meters is just 10 feet off the ground at the moment but it has been doing a great job. Hope to raise it higher before winter sets in. Also purchased a signalink usb and have been playing with digital modes mostly PSK-31 on 40 meters and 10 meters. Have made some really great contacts and had some nice ragchew qso's. Digital modes work well with my current setup of my radio. My shack is actually in one corner of our living room. So in the evening hours i can run digital modes and my wife can watch tv without us interfering with each other. The plans are to move all,the radio gear upstairs in the future as soon as i get work done to the room i will eventually use. Hope to catch you all on 80m,40m,30m,20m,17m,15m,12m or 10m or 6m depending on band conditions some time soon. Just strung up a dipole for 6 meters and have worked a few openinging over the last few days interesting band!
73 de KC9RFO

Hope to work you on the air soon! 73 de KC9RFO

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

FT-450D
Kenwood TS-2000
Yaesu FT-901DM"retired: awaiting alignment and repair"
Yaesu FT-1900R 2m mobile
RCI Ranger 2950
President 2510
Icom 25A 2 meter mobile with communication specialist tone board.
Baofeng GT3-TP HT with extended battery
Baofeng UV-5R HT with extended battery
Baofeng UV-82 HT
Wouxun KG-UVD1P HT
Signalink usb interface
Dentron Super Tuner
Diamond SX-600 watt/swr Meter
35amp Astron power supply
50amp Aries Technology power supply
2 20Amp Motorola power supplys"Old repeater cabinet".
30M/40M/80M wire dipole 10ft off the ground.
4/14/2016 20M wire dipole 15ft off the ground.
For 17M,15M/12M/10M Solorcon I-MAX 2000 fiberglass vertical.
Jetstream JBT-1 2m/70cm fiberglass vertical
Homemade dual band Jpole for 2M/70cm
40ft tilt base tower to be put up this coming spring.