I want to start by thanking Joe Spencer, KK5NA and those who sponsored me: Thomas Jenkins W2TJ, “super-fast” Mark McCullough KD9UYC, and John Calnan W7JKC for taking the time to show me how much they believe in CWops and providing encouragement in my Morse code CW journey.
I was first introduced to the hobby in 1989 by a good friend and instantly fell in love. I had been in the telecommunications field working for a ILEC and CLEC all over the country just out of high school in 83 and was intrigued by my peers who were licensed and preforming all sorts of tasks, building and tinkering. How could I resist? So I took the Tech test in 1989 and was on my way to building antennas and amps, becoming the tinkering fool. In the ‘90s I went to work for some startups in wireless which provided me all the measuring tools you could only dream of affording on your own. So that was fun.
My Morse code journey started later after a long stint away from the hobby. I found I needed something to challenge me as all the digital modes of operation were a simple task of figuring out how the software works and how it was written, in its simplicity still a valuable tool. CW, on the other hand, was a piece of software in my head that needs to constantly be trained to interpret sounds into an understandable “language,” i.e. to me the same as any other language. This is the constant challenge for me, not to simply interpret short bursts of data dits and das but to interpret as I do my second language (Italian) which at one time was as one time my first, a language that to me when heard is no different to understanding someone speaking English. There is no decoding going on from Italina to English, just familiarity. This is my hope with Morse code, to become familiar with the combinations of sounds.
OR I got it all wrong, lol time will tell.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.