About
Hello, thanks for dropping by!
I have been fortunate to now have enjoyed over 30 years of amateur radio—and through it—have met some of the most interesting and exceptional people, many of whom have become lifelong friends. It's possible we've met if you're in the region—I became an American Radio Relay League Life Member some years back and previously served the Western Pennsylvania Section as Affiliated Club Coordinator, Technical Specialist, and Registered Instructor, and still serve as a Volunteer Examiner across the region. I also once served the Western Pennsylvania Repeater Council as Frequency Coordinator. My home club is the Fort Armstrong Wireless Association, and they're a fantastic group of kind people that I get to enjoy a hobby with.
I'm a busy 40-something but still get on the air when I can find the time—I have been blessed with an exciting but challenging career managing a team of infrastructure engineers at a regional utility. Every once in a while, my talents are tapped to assist with a strange two-way radio system issue or RFI problem…it's fun to work for a company that recognizes your abilities.
My best attribute is my extremely dry sense of humor, which you'll come to know and love. I mostly like to hide out on digital modes and CW…and maybe it's because I don't have to talk—isn't that strange? My only social media besides ham radio and QRZ is LinkedIn—no, I'm serious—ham radio is the oldest social media, right? I still have a landline too, that I both use and love.
Stations
Despite living at 787 feet I seem to effortlessly work the whole world on less than 100 watts. I may have worked you from a metal railing, a rain gutter, or a grass wire antenna—yes, an antenna on the grass. Yes, it works. I'm probably having more fun than you.
Atop a hill with all kinds of random metal floating around for antenna experiments. Ever load up a metal corn crib and talk to Japan? It's fun.
I have tapped sap veins of a tree to talk a time or two—sorry, trees. There's nothing like that early mornin' singin' song the open coil half-wave sings at 70 MPH in the fog. (If you know, you know!)
On Operating
I'm more of a stop and smell the roses kind of guy, so I tend to chat for a few minutes on the radio. I lack the mindless appliance operator mentality and don't have it in me to swap random contest serial numbers and signal reports just to bid you “seventy-threes.” The closest you'll find me to a contest is supporting my local club on American Radio Relay League Field Day or Winter Field Day—and that's to get new hams on the air, lend technical assistance, expend elbow grease, promote the hobby, enjoy some fellowship, and most importantly, eat.
I'm slowly documenting all of my madcap projects, ideas, musings, brain droppings, software, and other potpourri which may be littered across any of the websites at the bottom of this page.
Advisory
Sometimes I let my humor get the best of me and might heckle or otherwise ignore you on the air for any number of reasons. For example, you…
- lack a sense of humor
- contest regularly
- pretend you are important
- tell me you are important, i.e. you are a “wacker” who leverages amateur radio to rationalize and normalize your ongoing mental health crisis and delusions of grandeur that we must all now painfully endure
- talk about politics and/or religion—especially regularly
- let your maladies be the center of every conversation
- have more than one functional Baofeng that you use regularly and freely admit to professing unending love and admiration for
- are regularly operating an overmodulated Baofeng that sounds like a kazoo
- use a microphone that sounds like its element was made of dollar store wax paper
- say “for ID” in your transmissions—as if call signs have some other special purpose or meaning
- fail to realize your $12K radio has a dial on it that actually turns
- …and call that dial a “vee-foh” (VFO)
- own an amplifier
- tune-up over a QSO
- own an amplifier and tune-up over a QSO
- take 20 minutes to tune-up and do it over an active net 200 miles away—especially when you turned your radio on to the very same frequency it was at when you turned it off
- splatter—especially while knowingly dropping in 1.5 kHz away from an active QSO happening 50 miles from you
- linger on 75-meter nets for hours at a time, or worse, proudly linger on 75-meters as a general habit
- talk for more than two minutes in a single transmission on 160-meters
- un-key to ‘give yourself more time’ on HF as if it's an FM repeater that times itself out
- tune your overpriced Buckmaster for 10 minutes—even though it is already resonant on the band you're working with an SWR lower than 1.5:1 and always was, even without a tuner
- use full legal limit to talk to your buddy 10 miles away on 40-meters—the very one that you talk to every single day about nothing, and all day—yes, the same one you just had dinner at the Elks lodge with last night—all when you could work him on a 49 MHz “walkie talkie” from RadioShack where you won't be heard
- try to convince me why a G5RV is such a great antenna and worthy endeavor worth constructing and using
- own or operate a FlexRadio regularly or proudly
- talk more than 30 seconds about your FlexRadio, especially when you have no idea what you own
- talk about how great you think your FlexRadio audio is on SSB, even if you have absolutely no idea whatsoever that it is greedily gobbling up nearly 5 kHz bandwidth for “Enhanced SSB”
- act like your FlexRadio is great because it has “Enhanced SSB”
- toggle compression on and off with your FlexRadio on “Enhanced SSB” and ask your buddies how it sounds with or without compression, especially on 160-meters
- use “Enhanced SSB” when any self-respecting ham would proudly just come clean and use full carrier AM with finite bandwidth and clear boundaries on a bandscope
- ask people to repeat their call signs both phonetically and slowly whose signals are full-quieting and clearly legible on FM repeaters—…and then have a conversation with them about how good your FlexRadio is on HF
- put off major home improvements for a FlexRadio; scrimped on your YL’s engagement or wedding ring; took money out of your retirement fund; or sent your kid to community college so you had the funds to buy one
- mention FlexRadio, no matter how benign the reference—even if you have no interest in using, owning or knowing anything about one
- practice learned helplessness—either asking me mindless questions, or assuming my license class means I am required to do your critical thinking because you’re too lazy to
- think Ohm’s Law is something your state representative codified to infringe upon your rights to keep you from using a mobile two-way radio installation while you’re driving
- have other practices or behaviors that are of annoyance or disgust to the amateur radio community and the general listening public
Yeah, yeah… “seventy-threeees, old maannn!”
Affiliations
- Fort Armstrong Wireless Association — Home club; two-time Outstanding Service Award recipient
- American Radio Relay League — Lifetime member; Volunteer Examiner; former Western Pennsylvania Section Technical Specialist, Affiliated Club Coordinator & Registered Instructor
- Western Pennsylvania Repeater Council — Former Frequency Coordinator