Biography

Conceived on July 4, 1938. Grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. First HF activity: August, 1954, as WN9JEF. Dropped the N in October, and passed Extra Class exam at Chicago FCC office in 1957. My brother, W9JDG and I were technical advisors for our Aunt Ethelyn's book TODAY I AM A HAM, published in 1968. I've been retired (from mostly radio broadcast engineering) since July of 2001, kept busy as single father and homeschooler of son born in 1996. Two cats in the yard, life's not so hard.

Equipment

Started out as Novice with old Grunow "All Wave" rcvr, and home brew 6V6 xtal osc., and 80 m folded dipole. Lack of money to buy commercial gear was a blessing, learned radio engineering by designing, building, and debugging. WWII surplus ARC-5 3 to 6 MHz receiver with BC453 Q-5er, and xtal controlled converter for 80 thru 10 meter bands. Home brew xmtr, similar to Heath DX-100, using ARC-5 surplus parts. Final was a pair of 1625's (19 cents a piece).

Rig now is Icom IC-706 with 250 Hz CW filter. Home brew amp, four 811-A's at about 500 watts; B+ is grounded, no DC blocking cap, plate current flows thru tank coil and RF choke across 50 ohm output.

Antennas: 80 meter turnstile up 48 feet at apex, ends slope to about 27 feet, fed with 4-wire open line; also used as vee beams on 40, 30, and 20; and umbrella cage vertical on 160, 80, and 40, fed against about 30 or so radials, and house powerline neutral. Also a 27 foot wire vertical, and 50 foot TV tower fed with a quarter-wave skirt on 30 meters against 6 elevated radials.