I’m a retired middle school science, math, and STEM teacher. I started teaching in 1985 but only became interested in ham radio after my wife, Kathy KE7ZKD, got her license first to do emergency communication. I became a ham just to spend time with her and see if I could pass the tests–which I did by passing my General in 2009 and became KF7EON.

I’ve been interested in electronics and science ever since grade school, but my interest in amateur radio soared when I went to a summer ARRL Teacher Institute in 2011. After that, as a science teacher and later as a STEM teacher, I tried to expose my students to the joys of radio, electronics, Morse code and satellite tracking and communications. I passed my Extra in 2014 and in May of 2015 I received my current call sign. I retired from teaching in 2019.

I’m on the board of the Valley Radio Club in Eugene, Oregon.  I enjoy tinkering building inexpensive antennas and other electronic projects, and doing computer programming.

My contact information is current on QRZ.com

Amateur Radio Is a Hobby That Includes Many Hobbies.
Here are 75:

  • Antenna building
  • Automatic location reporting (APRS)
  • Audio signal enhancing
  • Awards for Worked All States (WAS), DX Century Club (worked 100 entities–DXCC)
  • Balloon launching (w/ radio tracking)
  • Basic science
  • Battery science and management
  • Boy Scouts on the Air
  • Communicate on different bands (1.25m, 2, 6, 10, 15, 17, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 160)
  • Community service
  • Computer control systems for radio
  • Contesting
  • Digital communication
  • DXing (long-distance contacting)
  • DXpeditions (Operate from rare locations)
  • Earth-Moon-Earth (moon bounce) communication
  • Electronics
  • Emergency communication
  • Emergency preparation
  • Experimenting
  • Family communications
  • Fox (or bunny) hunting (direction finding)
  • Homebrew transmitters
  • Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP)
  • Islands on the Air (IOTA)
  • Kit building
  • Low Power Transmitting (QRP)
  • Marine mobile work
  • Mesh Networking
  • Mobile radio (bicycle, motorcycle, vehicle, RV, hiking)
  • Moon-bounce communication
  • Morse code communication
  • Neighborhood emergency radio
  • Net control
  • Net participation
  • Pacific Seafarers Net
  • Parks on the Air (POTA)
  • Physics of antennas
  • Physics of electronics
  • Physics of radio wave propagation
  • Physics of the sun regarding radio propagation
  • Physics of waves
  • Public service
  • Public speaking (at meetings & events)
  • QSL card collecting
  • Radio astronomy
  • Radio control
  • Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Hunting
  • Radio repair
  • Repeater design and management
  • Radio frequency engineering
  • Satellite communication
  • Search and rescue
  • Sherriff assistance
  • Short wave listening
  • Software design for radio controls
  • Solar panel science and management
  • Space station communication
  • Slow Scan TV (SSTV)
  • Study radio spectrum
  • Summits on the Air
  • Support running & bike races
  • Technology
  • Tube radio work
  • Voice communication
  • Volunteer Examiner (VE) testing for new hams
  • Volunteering in your club
  • Weak signal propagation monitoring (WSPR)
  • Wireless internet communication 802.11
  • Worked 100 countries award (DXCC)
  • Worked all county award
  • Worked all provinces award
  • Worked all states (WAS) award
  • Young Ladies (YL’s) in ham radio groups
  • Youth mentoring

 

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