WB4SON

My father and I enjoyed QSOs almost weekly until his death in September 1998, not too long after we returned from a visit with our newborn daughter.

That really took the wind out of my sails in terms of ham radio.  I pretty much gave up on the low band stuff and casual QSOs, and concentrated on Satellite modes.  I purchased a Kenwood TS-790A to have a decent VHF/UHF radio shortly before my father died, in anticipation of the launch of the new Phase 3D satellite that would briefly become AO-40.

My family moved into our current home in North Kingstown in November of 1998.  I installed egg-beater antennas for 144 and 430 MHz in the spring of 1999 as well as antenna mounted pre-amps from SSB Electronics.

Kenwood TS-790A

SSB-Electronics pole mounted preamp

AO-40 finally launched in December of 2000, but suffered major issues that essentially left the satellite useless.  It was a huge disappointment for many folks.  (If I recall correctly someone forgot to remove a brightly colored lock-out tag that was marked “Remove before launch”, which lead to a cascade of failures once the motor was fired to boost it into higher orbit.)  Had AO-40 survived, I probably would have remained active in radio, but when it suffered a failure of almost all systems, I really lost interest.  With no satellite, and no weekly

M2 Eggbeater

schedules with my father to keep me going, I made my last contact during January of 2001 on FO-29.

A set of circular polarized antennas for 144/430 plus a az-el rotor, intended for use on AO-40, sit unopened in their boxes to this day.

After that I packed up my low band and satellite gear and stuck mostly to VHF/UHF FM, but I wasn’t very active.  I did try some high speed packet around 2003, but nothing held my interest for very long.  My attention focused to raising my kids and work.  It would be a decade before I would return to ham radio, and I doubt I had more than a dozen contacts in that 10 year stretch between 2001 and 2011.

I married the love of my life in June of 1982.  We had been together since 1976 in college, and we moved to our first house (located in West Warwick, RI) in January of 1984 (the same time that Apple was introducing the Macintosh).

A house of my own meant better antennas were now possible.  While I had dreams of antennas on top of a tower, that wasn’t to be.  But at the time I had been fully bitten by the packet radio craze and setup a rather high power digital station on 2-meters that served as a relay link between hams in the north and south of RI.  Other digital modes like Amtor had started up on the HF bands, and I messed with that, and continued to work with the Satellites.

I did a lot of listening to AO-10, and managed a few contacts by keying a dual band VHF/UHF Kenwood FM rig on the uplink, and using a 2-meter converter tied to my IC-740 on the downlink.  I also managed a contact with one of the shuttle missions before the STS-51 Challenger explosion in early 1986, and after that with a ham abord the Russian MIR.

My father retired back to Alabama in the mid-80’s, and we kept weekly schedules on CW and SSB ever since he moved.  He bought a Kenwood TS-440 right after his move and used it for years. I decided to join him on the Kenwood bandwagon and bought a TS-850SAT around 1994.

Kenwood TS-850SAT

In the fall of 1975, I enrolled in Union College and spent the next four and a half years earning my BSEE.  I began my Freshman year commuting from my parents home, which was only a couple of miles away, but quickly discovered that college is one part mental and two parts social.  By December of 1975 I announced my intention to move out on my own.

Ham Radio didn’t play much of a part in my life as I moved from one horrible apartment to another, and worked hard to pay the bills and study for class.  But I did join the college club station, W2UC, and enjoyed working my first real DX with their Drake equipment and beam.  By May of 1979, when I still had a half year to go, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and somehow scraped up $705.11 and bought a Yaesu FT-101FE.  I have no idea how I managed to pay for that, and tuition, and room and board, but I had a fantastic summer.  I lived about a mile from the school and would carry that FT-101 in my arm to the club station and use it.  Plus I had a stealthy wire antenna hanging outside my apartment.  Ham radio was alive and well.

Yaesu FT-101FE

Actually I do have an idea of how I paid for things.  While I was in college I started designing control systems and doing projects based on microprocessors (Intel 4004/8008/8080) — a brand new emerging technology at the time.  I was lucky enough to be able to start lecturing on this professionally while I was still in school (there were very few people who understood the technology at the time — remember the IBM PC didn’t start shipping until August of 1981).  During those lectures, I bumped into a young manager who was working for GE Research and Development.  Ed Miller was his name, and he insisted that I look him up when the time came.

I did that, and took a job working for GE Wiring Devices in December of 1979, were I began a career designing lighting control equipment (saves energy by making sure lights are turned off or reduced in level in industrial and commercial buildings).  Through the technology and company names have changed, I continue to do the same sort of thing 32 years later.

As soon as I moved into my new apartment in Warwick Rhode Island, I dropped my WB2ZIB call, and went back to using WB4SON (the FCC rules had changed and your call sign area no longer had to match your living address).  I immediately applied microprocessor technology to ham radio, and designed several devices to assist me with my radio work.  I took up an interest in RTTY and designed several interfaces (both audio and digital).  I also renewed my interest in Satellite modes, and built a few receive and transmit converters to use with my FT-101.

In August of 1980, I purchased a Yaesu FT-207R 2-meter hand-held and YM-24 Mic for $335 to replace my old crystal based TR-22.  I acquired a 50 watt output amplifier for it, and my father (still living in Niskayuna NY) and I  would chat with each other weekly via a repeater located on Mount Tom in Western Mass. We were about 175 miles apart as the crow flies, but having a repeater 1200 feet in the air half-way between us sure helped.

Yaesu FT-207R 2-meter FM Handheld

In April of 1983, I replaced my FT-101FE with a more modern (fully solid state) Icom IC-740 that supported all the new WARC ham bands (I modified the FT-101 to work on 30 meters).  That was a very exciting radio in its day.  With an internal power supply and CW filter, it sold for just about $1060.

Icom IC-740