Biography

Thanks for taking time to read my Bio...

I currently reside in Rock Hill, SC, with my beautiful wife, Brenda. I grew up in the Youngstown area of northeastern Ohio.

I am fairly new to Amateur Radio, earning my Technician Ticket as KM4THP on April 16, 2016. I changed my call to KE4PLT in May 2016, and earned my General Ticket Oct 1, 2016. I am really enjoying this hobby. I look forward to getting my Extra License soon.

For as long as I can remember, I was always interested in Radio, CB's, Walkie Talkies, Shortwave, AM, FM, FRS and GMRS, and it is part of the reason I studied Electrical Engineering in college.

My father had a CB radio in his car and I thought it was so cool. My dad's CB handle was "Frenchie". While I was a boy he gave me a pair of 14 channel walkie talkie cb radios. I can remember, when he was close to home on his way back from work, he would call me from the car. It was the most awesome thing for me to here him calling, "Johnny Boy this is Frenchie, do you copy?" on that walkie talkie. I wish he was still here today, so he could see my shack and operate with me.

It was my Uncle Marcel, VE2EKH, who finally influenced me to get my license. He has been a Ham Operator for over 40 years.

My current shack set up for HF communications consists of a Yaesu FTDX-3000D & SP-2000 speaker as my primary rig, combined with a RM Italy Amp outputing 450watts and a LDG 600PROII Autotuner. I also use a Heil PR-781 boom mic or a PSE6 Headset and FS2 Foot petal to get the voice into the radio.

I have connected an SDRPlay to the RX port of the 3000, and use it as a Panadpter. I am running SDRUNO for the panadpter software, and OmniRIG for rig control. It works great, and I absolutely love the combination. OmniRig control and the SDRUNO software run on a dedicated IBM Think Centre PC, I5 processor Quad core, 16 GB ram and 1 TB hard drive.

I run the QRZ, LOTW and NetLogger web apps and any other applications from the shack Think Pad I-7 Quad Core laptop, it is displayed on the 2 monitors on the right.

I have installed red and white LED lighting on the risers so I can operate with the overhead room lights off.

I do have a Flex 1500 radio as a backup, with the the amp's help I can push out about 150 watts. Current power supply is a Diamond GRVX-6000 60 amps capable.

I operate a Yaesu Ft-2900R (75watt) 2meter in the shack for local nets and Simplex 2 meter oprations.

For Antennae, I am using a Talented Balun 40 meter delta loop (from AG6IF) at 25ft and an Alpha Antenna Promaster Vertical 10-80 meters no tune mounted on a 17' military mast. I use a 2 meter/440 J-pole antenna for VHF/UHF communications.

I have a Yaesu FT-857D and an Alpha Antenna Military portable for 6-80 no tune for field ops. I also operate a Kenwood V-71A in my truck for VHF/UHF communications.


I like to operate portable on solar power, using my homebrew 450Watt solar generator, with a 60watt Allpower foldable panel.

Paper QSL Info: Please send direct to my address:

John Gendron, KE4PLT

3052 Devonshire Drive

Rock Hill, SC 29732 USA

SASE is nice but not required my current cards are 4X6.

I will respond 100% on any direct QSL. I use QRZ as my main logging software, so please confirm our contact here. I also upload my log to LOTW (logbook of the World), HDRlog and eQSL.cc. Thanks so much

I look forward to see you all on the bands... Cheers and "73" to you all...

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Main Rig:
Yaesu FTdx-3000D
Yaesu SP-2000 Speaker
SDRPLay and SDRuno for Pan Adapter
Omni Rig and SRRuno for Rig control
LDG600 ProII AutoTuner
RM Italy Amplifier

Back-up and Portable Rig
FLex Radio 1500 (QRP)
Yaesu FT-857D HF/VHF/UHF

VHF RIG
Yaesu FT-2900R (2Mtr)

Mobile VHF/UHF
Kenwood TM-V71A

HF Antenna
Talented Balun (by AG6IF) 40 meter Delta loop
Talented Balun (by AG6IF) 80 meter Delta Loop
Alpha Antenna Promaster vertical 80-10 no tune on military mast
Alpha Antenna Portal Military vertical 6-80 portable no tune and tripod