My Ham Radio Stuff

• Brief History

  Sadly, I haven't been very active since the terrorist attacks on 9-11, 2001.  My childhood friend Rod Coppola (KA2KET) was killed that day, and I feel partly responsible for getting him the job with WNET at the World Trade Center in New York.  We got our Licenses together back in 1980 (I was KA2LCY) and had a lot of fun with Ham Radio up on the 110th floor over the years, it was a great passion for both of us.

  We had a remote base on 147.540 MHz which was linked via 900 MHz and an output on 438.800 MHz.  I also had some equipment with Alex (KQ2H) for voting receivers on his repeater system.

  The year before 9-11, I became 'Mr. Mom' (which was a full time job) and with the tri-state area ham bands becoming worse than CB, I just lost my enthusiasm for the hobby.

  Now with cell phones . . . what's the point?  It's funny . . . I can remember telling friends with much excitement back in the 1970's (while holding up a Motorola HT-200) that someday we'll make phone calls with something like this.   Sort of like that Virgin commercial "in the future, we'll communicate with our thumbs".  What I treasure now is each moment I can get away from being 'in touch'.

• In the Works

  I may get back on HF soon.  Signal reports from Hugh (N2XBC) down in Florida indicate that 20 meters is open (he's been making contacts up here in the northeast).  He retired down there a few years ago and that may be the nudge I need to get back on the airwaves.  And there's Bill (N2YEG), recently retired to south Jersey (the last of the original AT&T NOC team from the 1970's), who's been working on a covert HF antenna which has also helped to give me a little spark to get going.

  My next project is to get a 20 meter dipole up in the trees.  Then I'll work on a wideband dipole for 40 meters and perhaps another for 80 meters.  

• Over the Years

  Some of the things that I have been working with are EchoLink and Remote Hams.  Both technologies work very well in the year 2013, but they lack the thrill of radiating your own RF energy.

• The Last Paragraph

  All in all, CB been berry, berry good to me. oobly - doobly - doo