I've been toying with electronics for about as long as I can remember - as a kid, building crystal sets by the dozens, 1T4 single-tube radios and finding countless ways to play with old carbon telephone handsets and batteries. Growing up in the 40's and 50's in Corpus Christi, Texas, I had a chance to play with a lot of WW II, military surplus electronics equipment. The huge Naval Aviation Base (NAS) located at Corpus generated tons of surplus electronics in the area. I converted a lot of it before I even thought about getting my ham license. Some of the gear I fondly remember are the ARC-5 receivers, Command Set transmitters, BC-611 walkie-talkies, SCR-522's (a great police receiver in those days), Pogo-Stick transceivers, BC-610 tank transmitters and ATK/ATJ iconoscope television cameras which were used in the first-ever, smart bombs developed toward the end of WW II.

The first time I got one of the old ATK cameras working I'll never forget seeing a bird sitting on a telephone pole (showing up on my old Westinghouse converted television, monitor) . The 50 pound camera just happened to be pointing out the window when I first flipped on the 100 pound power supply I had scrounged together from spare parts. The bird was tweeting away and looking all about as if he knew someone was spying on him. This occurred long before VCRs and CCD cameras were invented and just shortly after image orthocons and vidicon tubes were introduced. Having my own television camera was about as good as it got in those days.

My older brother Glenn got his ham license in 1955 (or thereabouts) and still has his license - W5FNW - although he is not a particularly active ham these days his shack is fully operational. Most of the surplus equipment I converted for my brother's use and some for his friends who were hams and still more just for my own amusement. I always enjoyed it when my brother fired up an 80 meter Command transmitter that I had converted by rewiring the filaments to 12 VDC from the normal 28VDC army/air corps voltage. Hearing the old dynamotor whir when he keyed down was a real thrill for me and listening to the companion ARC-5 receiver come alive gave me a great sense of accomplishment even though the conversion processes were usually very easy.

I really loved his phonetic call sign - Whiskey Five Feeble Nit Wit - ain't it kool - so I recently got my vanity call sign changed to K5FNW? I first got my license in 1963 (W5CDS) and let it expire. In 1986 I retook the tests and became KB5DIX and currently hold a General Class license. I may upgrade since the theory and Morse code (20 wpm) required is pretty easy for me. I just don't have a compelling reason to go take the tests. Much is changing in the amateur-radio world these days. Before long, tests may be entirely unnecessary. The Morse code requirement is probably going to be eliminated except for a few license classes. That's okay with me if we can attract a lot more folks into the hobby. It seems unfortunate to me that fewer and fewer young people are getting interested in the hobby. I guess with cell phones and the web not too many folks think ham radio is necessary these days. But, as any Red Cross disaster team might tell you in times of emergencies, ham operators are often times the only communications capability they have in an area wiped out by floods, tornados and hurricanes.

I have always loved home-brewing (building my own electronic stuff from scratch) as many of my toys as possible. Unfortunately old age has caught up to me and designing and etching circuit boards isn't as much fun as it used to be. I've built much of Dr. Ralph Taggert's weather satellite gear, my own autopatches, electronic keyers, gazillions of power supplies and oodles of gadgets. I built my first novice CW transmitter using a pair of 6V6's. I've never built my own HF receiver from scratch but I've built plenty of preamps to get a hotter receiver front-end and VFOs for old AM gear. I've built a lot of Heathkit gear over the years ranging from their lunchbox transceivers and test equipment to my first computer - an H8. I first learned how to program computers using my beloved H8. HERO, the Heath robot used to occupy space and keep me company in my shack but I sold him on E-Bay recently. Today, I still have a garage that overfloweth with junk but my middle-aged eyesight doesn't allow me to enjoy tinkering as much as I used to. Using surface mount components are almost out of the question for me although I still enjoy bread boarding simple IC circuits from time to time. For many years my shack consisted of a ICOM 821H SSB/FM satellite xcvr, Yaesu FT-100 HF, Yaesu FT-890AT HF, Yaesu FT-5100 dual bander and several pieces of MFJ gear and a whole garage full of doodads. Today, it blows my mind that a complete 100-watt HF, 2 mtr, 70 cm, 6 mtr all fits in a tiny little package not much bigger than a bugger.

My fixed-base antennas still consist of a G5RV (for my DX-398 receiver) and a Dual Band Ringo up at 35 feet and a Yaesu azimuth/elevation rotor setup using M-Squared crossed yagis for OSCAR (Orbiting Satellites Carrying Amateur Radio) communications. While I have listened to ham-rated astronauts on the Shuttle, MIR and now the ISS space station, I have never actually talked with them although one time I thought the Shuttle heard me calling CQ shortly before LOS. I have been able to work all of the satellites to/thru which I can legally communicate. I have used AO-27 and FO-29 many times. I also keep my ancient IC-02AT (2 mtr) handy-talkie charged, although I don't know why. I rarely use it.

 

I'm Running Mobile Now

Betty and I decided to downsize in our waning years and so my current shack is a lot smaller and fits neatly in our car's center console. Mark Keith (NM5K) came over and practically installed the entire system for me. I can't thank him enough because I could never have done it alone. The FT-100 xcvr and FC-20 auto tuner are located in the trunk and he ran the YSK-100 remote head kit into the console. When it is closed and raised you can't even see any radios in our front seat cabin. I am running it into a Perth Outbacker for HF (barefoot) and into a dual-bander mag-mount for 2-mtrs and 70-cm. I gave my brother the FT-890 and a few other larger pieces of equipment that I will never use again and I gave Mark a ton of good stuff I will never use again.

I often download the NOAA weather satellite pictures using a Vanguard WEPIX 2000 receiver and the 2-meter portion of my Azimuth/Elevation tracking antenna array. NovaWin is my favorite tracking software. I also have a Honda, autostart, 5-KW generator that will allow me to operate my gear under some emergency conditions. One of my pledges is to become more active with ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service), at least as far as the local, SE Texas nets will allow. Just to stay as current as I can manage, I subscribe to QST magazine and kibitz local repeaters. Since Betty always drives, I can just sit and rag-chew all day long. I can spare her the noise using my headset and boom microphone. I've been much more active checking into the 7290 and Texas Traffic Nets after being off the air for almost 2-years. One last thing - the Outbacker gives me 1.1:1 SWR from 75-mtrs to 440 and that ain't too bad for a mobile, trunk-lip mounted antenna. Please give me a shout if you ever hear me yakking because I love old-time rag-chews - Kilo-five-feeble-nit-wit.

 

 

 

My Seismology Hobby

My current interest is playing with my seismic station. I bought pre-manufactured amps, filters and a 16-bit A/D converter designed and built by Larry Cochrane. My little station is currently equipped with two long-period horizontal modified Lehman sensors and a special broad-band vertical sensor all hand made by my good friend John Cole - W5AUH. If I detect an event, I usually post a Public Seismic Network (PSN) data file of the event recording on Larry's website along with other hobbyists who post their own recordings as well.

From 1983 to 1997 I hosted a BBS named LINX (Lincoln Experiment). I enjoyed the experience very much but when the Internet became so popular I just decided to shut it down. We never charged anyone for using LINX which was free to all who wanted to log on. Over the years we probably had more than 100,000 different users come aboard and I bought 4 new computers and 10 modems over the years just to keep it going. We started operating LINX at 300 baud and when we stopped we were handling 56K. That's quite a leap in technology in about a decade. It's almost impossible to compare that ancient technology to the stuff we have today.

If you're not a ham, this probably bored you to tears...

Anyway, 73's...