I was born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio and became interested in Ham Radio back in Parma, Ohio in the early 60’s when a friend in our church youth group showed me his dormer bedroom that was filled with radio equipment.  It was fantastic; there were glowing tubes and neat sounds coming from the radio speakers. I was very excited and begged my parents to buy me a receiver kit. It wasn’t a Heathkit and it was more than a 13 year old could successfully build. My dad took pity on me and had someone finish the kit but it was never a very good receiver. My parents finally purchased a Hammarlund HQ-110 receiver and Heathkit DX40 transmitter just before they retired to Tennessee in 1962.

In Tennessee I lived in the small town of McKenzie where I was first licensed as a Novice. I had only two crystals so I didn’t make very many contacts. My only record of my license is when I moved back to Ohio in 1964, I was given the licensed callsign of WN8MVN.

In 1968 I married my wife, Joy, and I started my career with AT&T. I took the Technician exam in 1970. I had the license (WA8SBB) but life got in the way and the license expired. We had a daughter and relocated several times while working for the old Bell System. After almost 40 years with AT&T/spinoffs I retired in 2008 with my wife to New Hampshire to be near our daughter.

In 2015, my son-in-law got his ham license (N1ZKO) and the Ham embers reignited and I took the Technician exam again but thanks to the new FCC rules, I was granted a General license in June 2015. I also wanted to reclaim some of those past missed goals and I purchased the Elecraft K3S in kit form. After successful “assembling” the transceiver, I finally met my childhood goal and had my first SSB phone contact on September 27, 2015. On March 19, 2016 I took the Extra exam and passed.

My main station now consists of an Apache Labs software defined radio running Thetis software. I also have an SPE Expert 1.5K amplifier that feeds a couple of home-made OCF dipoles. Hope to work you soon on the WASA Net..

73 de Paul W1PEF