About Me

Now, a bit about me, The chief Operator at WD5DZG . I was born in the forties and grew up in rural Tennessee. After high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Army where I served from 1962 until 1992 Retiring as Sergeant Major. After retiring,  I went back to school  with my daughter Melissa, I earned a BA in History, a Masters in Education and the greater part of a Doctorate in Educational Leadership.  In the process, we team graduated from Delta State University in Cleveland MS.  In 2004, I retired a second time after several years in the adult education field and now make my home in rural middle Tennessee with my wife  Pat, a computer programmer and  web designer (patvb.com).  I now spend part of my time doing Ham radio things and part of it doing honey-dos. Ham Radio is not my only interest, although it remains a strong..  other interests  include writing, metal working to include casting  and wood working.

My first real contact with radio came about when I decided at age 7 or so to connect 120 volts to the power input of a discarded farm radio, (Rural electric was new to us then) that experience was colorful, illuminating and smokey. Needless to say I suffered severe restrictions on my radio experimenting for a while after that. I became interested in Ham radio in the early sixties,  I bought a code oscillator and over a few weeks, taught myself the code. I obtained a novice call of WN4JGK. I was on the air for a couple of months, probably made 50 or so contacts using a borrowed rig and was posted to Europe.  Needless to say my novice license went without an upgrade. It was a few years later that I obtained the WD5DZG call while stationed in New Mexico. It was then also that I discovered Heathkit and purchased and built an HW101 as my primary rig. That rig served me well and I made thousands of contacts on it. In fact I still have and use it on occasion. Over the years I built several Heath rigs and equipment and am sorry they are no longer making amateur kits.

During one tour in Germany I obtained and operated under the call of DA2PA and experienced being on the other end for U.S. hams. While we hear much ado about bad operators etc, in my experience most of the U.S. hams that I contacted were very good Ops and are a credit to amateur radio in general. When I upgraded to advanced class I let WD5DZG lapse and was issued the call N4HHI. Talk about a cw call, that one sounds a lot like a stuck key. Even worse, all my "on the air friends" no longer recognized me. Once vanity calls became available I rectified that mistake and was reissued WD5DZG. I think I will keep it this time.

My Radio interests at present include restoring boat anchors, some high frequency operating and building and using both tube and solid state QRP rigs. All in all, Life is good, My antennas could be better maybe someday I will devote some time to them. 

Now you intrepid souls who have borne with me thus far, this is what you will find on this website over time. When I am involved in a particularly interesting project, I will post it here. When I find an interesting circuit or antenna, I will post it here, When I have an excess (to my needs) piece of gear I will post it here before the big online auction gets a shot at it. If I am looking for a particular part or a piece of gear I will post it here. Most of all I intend to have fun. Thank you for looking and I hope you enjoy the site.

Anyone wishing to contact me  please visit the Contact page, and  email me on the form there.