I didn’t know ham radio from a ham sandwich until I bought a pair of Baofengs from Amazon in the summer of 2022 for general prep purposes. Doing so sent me straight down the rabbit hole and I got licensed in October 2022, testing through to Extra the following spring. From the very beginning, I was annoyed that I couldn’t understand FM repeaters IDing in CW so I joined SKCC and got hooked hard on our favorite mode. It’s really all I want to do on the radio going forward. My mother taught numerous languages and my father taught music but growing up I learned little of either. CW to me is a blend of both and I love the feel of communicating with an instrument, whether straight key or paddle.
I am a former Marine Corps infantry officer and noticed how many veterans we have in our hobby. The people I’ve met in general in radio have just been fantastic and those who practice CW have been particularly nice and encouraging to this new operator.
When I’m not on the air, I’ll ideally be out on the ocean fishing or surfcasting, shooting handguns or working in NYC. I moved to Highlands, NJ in 2019 because of the world-class saltwater fishing here, particularly for striped bass and bluefin tuna. What I had no idea of at the time was that my town also has a rich radio history—the first practical demonstration of radio in America happened here in 1899 by Marconi, who had an office at the Twin Lights in Highlands. Although I live in an HOA with the typical restrictions on permanent antenna installations, I’ll sometimes set up a vertical antenna on the boat shown in the photo with two raised radials over the saltwater for 20 m, or right on the seawall nearby with raised radials parallel to the water for 40m, running the coax back to the shack. The “saltwater amplifier” is a real thing.
I first got interested in CWops when I happened to hear a long QSO between Amanda (KY4GS) this past May and another op whose call I didn’t catch. It was a long, flowing, natural-language conversation, simply a beautiful thing. True and easy fluency for ragchews at 25-30 wpm is my long-term goal in CW; when I can do that, more formulaic exchanges at higher speeds should be easy as well.
I want to thank Phil (NE0S), my CWA instructor, for his 8 weeks of superhuman patience, great fun and nominating me for membership, as well as my sponsors, Tom (K4TZ), Jay (N4GO) and Jim (N7US). Tom was nice enough to notice that we had a couple of QSOs logged and sponsored me without even being asked. Jay is a fellow gun guy and always took the time during CWTs to send me a “73” during our exchanges—he also has a YouTube channel where I got to hear firsthand how terrible my mag loop sounded compared to my vertical. Finally, Jim was also my very first CW contact on 11/20/23 and I really appreciate his enthusiastic support from the beginning.
I’m honored to be here and thank you all for the most warm welcome to this wonderful organization.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.