Biography

My friends call me Al. (See below.)

I have begun to use LoTW and have entered most of the DX stations from my paper logs and the data from NetLogger. It you don't find my call on your listing, then send me an email and I'll enter our QSO if I have it in my paper logs. I don't know if I'll ever have enough energy to enter all of them by hand. I now upload all my logging progrmas to LoTW: I would encourage everyone to use LoTW: it saves a lot of money on postage. I send QSLs by mail. You send me one, I'll send you one. No SASE needed. If you care enough to send me a card from wherever you are, I’ll return one to you. For DX Stations, I am good in the ARRL Bureau. I try to upload my logs once a month on or about the 1st to LoTW, eQSL, QRZ and QRZCQ. That way works best for me.

I have started to upload to eQSL, QRZ and QRZCQ. But I don’t really participate in the groups. So if you need Farmington, Maine or my call for some reason and the entry that appears is incorrect, then send me an email directly so I can check my log. The logbook of QRZ is a pain! IF YOU NEED A QRZ CONFIRMATION, EMAIL BE ALL THE DATA SO WE CAN MAKE CERTAIN IT MATCHES. OFTEN, OFTEN, WE CAN HAVE A VERIFIED CONTACT ON LoTW which will NOT confirm on QRZ.

My family and friends always called me Al or Albert. (When Mom called me James Albert, I knew I was in trouble!) At any rate, if you are in a position to be in on naming a baby, don't ever let the parents plan on calling this child by his or her middle name. It's not too bad until a legal document needs the first name, middle initial and surname. At that point in his or her life, the poor kid is in the position spelled by my initials, mainly one big JAM.

I retired from the University of Maine at Farmington in 2003 where I taught chemistry for 32 years. From the Fall of 2003 until the Spring of 2008, I taught at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I got my ticket in Waco, hence the KE5ISO call. Now that I am back in Maine I'll just keep the call and add a /1 at the end when the "5" causes confusion. If I ever get any good at CW, KE5ISO isn’t a half bad six character call!

The rigs are a Kenwood TS 590S, feeding a homemade tuner to a AL-572. The antenna is
a Cobra Senior which almost tunes from 160 - 10 M at my location. The antenna runs more or less North-South, and its radiation pattern is also influenced by the metal barn roof. t is strung between a tree in my yard and one on my neighbor's yard. She's a very nice lady!

My backup rig is a TS 130S and an ICOM 706MKII, feeding a MFJ-949E tuner.
I was given the Kenwood TS 130, power supply and desk mike. It was intermittent and functioned when it pleased! I finally found a replacement pass transistor for the
9 V supply, installed it and ten minutes later had the same problem. Upon opening it up again, putting solder about an inch down the traces to the transistor, it worked. I haven't had any problems since then. ( AND DUHHH!! have you ever seen a transistor that worked perfectly sometimes and not others? I've seen good ones, weak ones and dead ones, but never good/bad depending on the day. So I could have fixed it a lot earlier had I only put more solder on the traces to the original pass transistor.)

One of these days I'll learn enough about the antenna modeling software to see if the radiation pattern of my antenna can be calculated. Or maybe I'll find another way to put an antenna on my property. I might even find that the metal roof makes a fantastic ground plane.

I have WAS on the HHH net on 40 M and was awarded the number 911. On the OMISS, I’m have number 8047. The 40 M WAS on the HHH net also gave me WAS from the ARRL for 40. I also have 20 M WAS from the ARRL.


73, KE5ISO, aka Al McDaniel

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Kenwood TS-590S
Kenwood TS-130S
AL-572 amp
Homemade Hi Power Tuner
MFJ-949E tuner
TM-V71A
Cobra Senior antenna connected to a tree in our front yard and a neighbors tree on the other end running North-South more or less

Kenwood TM-V71A (mobile)
Icom IC-706MKII (mobile)
MFJ 20 40 80 M Hamsticks