Biography

Hi! My name is Scott, and I'm an IT guy by profession. In my spare time I'm a computer/technology/electronics enthusiast as well as a photographer.

While my ham ticket was just punched in 2024, I've been tinkering with radio and electronics since the 1970s. My XYL recalls that my grandmother frequently remarked on my ability to take things apart and then to put them back together in working order. I guess my curiousity about how things worked made more of an impression that I realized.

Since the 1980s I've also been ham-adjacent. My good friend Gary WB8EOH gave me a Realistic DX-200 HF receiver with a blown audio output stage with strict instructions to fix it and use it. A few days later I did just that, and I couldn't get enough of listening to shortwave broadcasts, scanning the ham bands for activity, and finding the mysterious signals in between. But, not much changed for quite some time. I still have that radio hooked up to an antenna, though of course the HF broadcast bands have all but died out at this point. While I do enjoy RNZI and the occasional baseball game from Radio Martí, I do miss hearing the tones from CBC announcing an upcoming broadcast!

Fast forward to 2021. I picked my my first SDR dongle, a Nooelec NESDR SMArt v4. This opened up a whole new world and soon my collection of SDRs grew to support decoding ISM weather remotes, ADS-B, HF digital modes, and local P25 traffic along with listening to everything I could find from NDBs on LF to commercial and amateur UHF. I was particularly amazed to find that 5W was enough to get a signal from Australia to Wisconsin using WSPR, and a mere 10mW to reach me from western Canada.

I was hooked. I started putting together a homebrew WSPR transmitter using a microcontroller and an Si5351 programmable clock generator. To actually put it on the air, of course, I needed to be licensed. With some encouragement from Marv N5QIM I dove in and started studying to take my Technician and General exams, and passed them both at the same session in January 2024. Two months later KD9ZRD was heard on 20m by stations up to nearly 1500 km away using a roughly cut hunk of 20 ga interconnect wire as an antenna.

Along the way I've started collecting the pieces I need to make some real contacts. My HF rig is an Icom IC-7300, and I'm working both to acquire a WRC coil for portable operation and to get my EFHW up in the back yard. Since March I've also acquired a couple of dual band HTs and I'm getting comfortable with them. My next challenge is to get serious about learning Morse code.

Finally, with an eye toward the impending changes to the Extra class exam, I decided in April 2024 to take on the Extra class exam. I passed the test on June 1, applied for my "forever" call sign, and was granted WG9I on July 2.

I've been impressed by the kindness and helpfulness of a great number of you in my listening. Thank you! I'd love to tell you so directly, so perhaps one day we'll make contact.

Until then, 73 de WG9I

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Icom IC-7300
MFJ-1984HP EFHW