I was 5 when I got my first transistor radio for Christmas and I have had a strong interest in radio ever since. I marveled at receiving stations from all over at night. Later, the interest expanded to listening to shortwave, scanner, and CB. I joined the CB craze just before it got popular. I knew about ham radio, but never thought I would be able to do code. My high school electronics teach (later a mentor) was a ham, and occasionally brought his 2 meter radio into the classroom. More than 10 years after that, I finally decided that I would try to get my Novice license and took a class sponsored by a local club. I was second to last in finally passing the 5 wpm test. I was so surprised, that I hadn’t studied for the written test. I took the test and aced it.
I received my Novice in 1986, shortly after, I studied for the Advanced and passed that, then went for the 13 wpm General license. That took a little more time but I passed that a couple of years later. I studied and got my Advanced class, but I stopped there, and stayed an Advance class operator for years. I never thought that I could get 20 wpm code, and really had no interest in code at that time. In 2012, I finally decided to get the no-code Extra license.
When the pandemic hit a couple of years ago, I decided that CW might be a fun thing to try again. I joined CWA, started taking classes and practicing with friends. I look forward to trying to do POTA sometime soon.
During my 37 years as a ham, I have served in a lot of club and public service events. I am currently the Emergency Coordinator for Washington County, Oregon ARES, an ARRL VE, Net Control on two traffic nets, and am Vice President for Chapter 108 of QCWA.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.