I received my novice while in the fifth grade in 1977. The class and the test were both taken in late 1976 but the license didn't arrive until Jan 1977. My friend Pat (WD8IJR) parents were taking this Amateur Radio class offered by the guidance counselor (George K8HLJ) at my elementary school. For the heck of it, Pat and I took the class and had a great time. Learning CW was a snap for both of us. Since we were only in 5th grade, the algebra was a little tougher (they didn't teach that until 7th grade). This was in the good old days when they didn't publish the question and the answers. As a matter of fact the Bash book wasn't even out yet. Gees, how many people remember the Bash book?

Thanks to the great American way (if you want something, buy it! aka Vanity Callsign), I escaped my original call of nearly 20 years... WD8IJP. For most of that time I was not able to have a station (my parents were not hams and also didn't like neighbors complaining about TVI). So I operated from WB8JBM (now KW8N) while I was in Jr. High and High School (1979-1983). I met Bob at a NOARS (Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Society) club meeting. I had been to the NOARS field-day operation but Bob introduced me to real contesting. As I look back, there is nothing like getting to learn at an early age from someone as skilled as Bob. Bob became a role model for me as he was into technical things that I wanted to be involved in, had a tremendous amount of patience with me, had a great home life and was an all around good guy.

Then while in college K8CC made his station available for SS SSB (1990) at a MRRC (Mad River Radio Club) meeting and I stepped forward and asked to be able to pilot the station. What followed turned out to be an annual SS SSB spot for me and also an opportunity to become active again as part of the K8CC multi's (not to mention a good friendship). Dave and I are both in the automotive electronics field (although at different companies). We swap contesting strategies, station building ideas and time working on each others stations. The past couple of years we have done the log checking for ARRL 10m and ARRL 160m contests. In 1998 we went to C6A for ARRL DX. In 2001 we went to WP2Z for ARRL DX CW (+K6LA) for a multi-2.

After finally finishing up with the college thing (giving all my money that would otherwise go to radio to the University of Toledo), I finally setup my own station. In the early days it was 80 foot of Rohn 35 (no that isn't a typo) and a KT34XA with a Cushcraft 2 el 40. Then an aborted move from this QTH left me with 60 foot of Rohn 35 and a KT34. After having one of the guy anchors pull out of the ground one spring, I decided that the guyed tower had to go. Not to mention having my city lot jumbled up with guy wires (what a pain to mow around and one more thing to weed-wack around!).

The next tower installation was a Trylon T600-64 with a pair of KT34XA's (64', 32') and a Cushcraft 2 el 40 (that received some beef-ups inspired by the W6QHS book). The Cushcraft had failed on me, of course in the middle of winter when it was 0 F and 2 foot of snow on the ground. Everything was going along great, except for doing two radio stuff I really wanted separate feedlines on the high bands, until this spring when mother nature messed up all my plans. She sent a tornado right over my house... although at least it went back up when it got to my house, so I had some damage that could be repaired but I still had a house! The tower survived but was bent. The mast was bent pretty bad and the antennas were bent up and broken.

Also, I was selected to represent MRRC in WRTC 2000. What a great experience. See the WRTC 2000 page for more information and pictures.