Ken

Ken became interested in "radio" at a young age, having grown up near an AM broadcast station that shared it's frequency with the former legendary border blaster, XERF. He found the nighttime long distance radio propagation to be nothing short of magic. A central plains ice-storm in the early spring of 1984, which left him with a battery-powered transistor radio as the only form of technology for 10 consecutive days, made this radio affliction even worse. His parents enabled his interests with radios and electronic project kits. Grandparents gave him Part 15 (49 MHz) walkie-talkies. Family friends loaned him antique tube shortwave receivers. In the mid-1980's, he stumbled upon two amateur (ham) radio operators having a conversation on 40 meters - AM. Amateur radio is a radio communication service for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by duly authorized persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest. He clearly recalls an engineer for WGN in Chicago causally chatting with another ham in California. He's been hooked ever since. With the help of his hometown radio club, he obtained his FCC Novice amateur radio license KAØVSZ in 1985. With the help of his dad, he obtained his first transceiver, a very used Kenwood TS-520. He quickly followed with upgrades to Technician and General class FCC licenses in early 1986. High school and college took priority for a few years, but he achieved his Amateur Advanced (in February 1991) and then Amateur Extra class licenses prior to the Y2K amateur radio license restructuring. His current interests include activating #POTA (Parks on the Air) DX-ing (with #CW #DXCC and individual DXCC awards on 7 bands, so far), contesting, traffic handling, emergency preparedness/communications, Raspberry Pi and Linux on the ham radio desktop. Some affiliations: ARRL Life Member ARRL Assistant Section Manager for Kansas DXCC CW Certificate #10766 CWops Life Member #3217 QCWA Life Member #35001 10-10 International #41674