I was first licensed in September of 2022, so I am a fairly new ham. Unlike a lot of hams I wasn’t really around any ham radio people as a kid. But like others, the pandemic and the following work-from-home transition brought about a desire to explore other hobbies and interests. I took up a painting class, metal working, put more time into woodworking, played games; and when cops started patrolling our neighborhood, got curious enough to try to listen to their comms.
This got me down a rabbit hole of setting up a cheap “scanner” using a SDR dongle and some free software. I was able to listen to the trunked police dispatch, railroad workers, pickup aircraft overhead, and even decode SSTV on HF (with enough wire strung up in the room), Eventually this landed me on ham radio and I got a cheap HT to listen in to other things. Not wanting to let the HT go to waste and with the encouragement from my Father-in-Law (KO4HRF), I got my technician ticket. Most think that this just gives you VHF/UHF with voice on the 10m band and that’s about it, but I was interested in fully utilizing my privileges. Technician allows for CW only operations on 15, 40, and 80 meters. I did just that. I got a Xiegu G90 and hung a homemade 40 meter dipole in my trees and set off. My first CW contact was with member Richard Dervan (N1RBD CWOPS #2983) when he was at a POTA park here in Georgia.
After that I was hooked on CW and POTA! And I hunted as many POTA activators on CW on 40 meters that I could. I did this until I got mad about not being able to get all the daytime activators on 20m and got my General ticket. From there I wanted to be able to work those fast DX stations and I spent time learning and practicing which is how I landed in the CW Academy.
I want to thank my advisor Serge KK7RR who nominated me and helped push me into the weekly CWT contests. I’d also like to thank those who sponsored me: K5UV, KR2Q, K1EBY, K1VUT, W8OV and K4BAI. And I’d like to thank a local ham and CWops member, Aaron N4ARY for helping me out with any of the million questions I have.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.