Amateur Radio

I have been licensed since 1993 when I discovered that my father used to hold an amateur radio license (WN0NRF). We both decided to go and get our technician license, and at that time, they had dropped the morse code requirement. Later on my father would get his general and then his advanced. He never went to Extra, saying that he liked being at Advanced and when they dropped Advanced, he said it made him “unique”. His callsign was KB0MYP (now a SK).

I, on the other hand, went to General and I did take the 5 WPM code test. However, when they dropped the morse code requirement all together, I went and took and passed my Extra. Shortly after that I got involved with my local VEs and obtained my VE credentials through the ARRL. I am now the lead for the W0ISU VE team on campus. For a while I was heavily involved with ARES, serving for a while as the District 1 Emergency Coordinator.

I am also the faculty advisor for the Campus (was Cyclone) Amateur Radio Club (CARC) and the trustee for the W0ISU club callsign. Until recently, most of my work was VHF/UHF work with some HF. I try to work a lot of digital modes. As an electrical engineer, those modes are of the most interest to me. In fact, in college I remember explaining to a professor how PSK31 worked and the advantages of that “new" digital mode.

More recently I have been trying to get back into HF radio and I am working on getting back into digital modes again. I have an Icom 705 and a Yaesu FT-991. The biggest thing I’m working on is a more permanent HF antenna. Right now I have a portable vertical which works fine for QRP with the Icom 705.