Personal interests include electromagnetic communication, DXing, contesting, #ARES and #SKYWARN. Professional interests include water resources, climate and drought. I am the volunteer #ARRL Assistant Section Manager for Kansas. #CWops 3217. Licensed and on the air since 1985. Inactive as @RadioGeek on most other social media platforms (Twitter/FB/IG/etc).

For the uninitiated, AKØA is my FCC issued amateur radio callsign. Amateur radio is a radiocommunication 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. I first 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. I 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 me with a battery-powered transistor radio as the only form of technology for 10 consecutive days, made this radio affliction even worse. My parents enabled my interests with radios and electronic project kits. Grandmothers gave me Part 15 (49 MHz) walkie-talkies. Family friends loaned me antique tube shortwave receivers. In the mid-1980’s, I stumbled upon two hams having a conversation on 40 meters - AM. I clearly recall an engineer for WGN in Chicago causally chatting with another ham in California. I’ve been hooked ever since. With the help of my hometown radio club, I obtained my Novice License (Originally licensed in 1985 as KAØVSZ). With the help of my dad, I obtained my novice rig, a very used Kenwood TS-520. I quickly followed with upgrades to Technician and General in early 1986. High school and college took priority for a few years, but I achieved my Amateur Advanced (in February 1991) and then my Amateur Extra class licenses prior to the Y2K amateur radio license restructuring. My current interests include 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.

This is a personal account.