Cliff_KU4GW

ABOUT ME: Born: Taylorsville, NC Raised: Taylorsville, Hiddenite, Stony Point, & Statesville, NC (in Alexander & Iredell Counties)
Universities: Catawba Valley Community College, Cleveland Institute of Electronics - 2-year diploma for the course "Electronics Technology with Laboratory" (1989-1991)

Hobbies: Amateur Radio & Shortwave Listening

Rev: KU4GW - April 3, 2022
My radio hobby story: I first became interested in radio when my mom bought me a Cobra 85 CB radio base station transceiver and a quarter-wave ground plane antenna for Christmas when I was 15 years old. I had so much fun, this was back in the day when CB was still regulated by the FCC and you had to have a license to use one. People wouldn't talk to you if you didn't have a callsign. When I started my freshmen year in high school a friend of mine invited me to his house to see his station one evening after school and that was when I discovered single-sideband! He had an old Regency radio with a Siltronix VFO-90 external VFO attached to it. I immediately wanted a sideband radio when I discovered on there they didn't use handles but instead used their first name and there were numerous sideband radio clubs and groups I became involved with. I also discovered I could talk all over the world using only the 12 watts the FCC allowed on 11 meter SSB. I remember talking to a guy on a ship in the sea of Japan onboard the SS Starfish! My goal after that was to get a sideband rig! I ended up getting a Realistic Navaho TRC-458 and had a blast on SSB working DX and met a lot of local friends in a group called the 12 America Sideband Club (number 12 because North Carolina was the 12th state to join the union) which at the time had over 600 members. I took on the job of publishing a monthly newsletter for the club and other members would send donations to cover the postage. I used an old Royal manual typewriter and stencil sheets from the local Taylorsville Times newspaper office and another club member that also later became a ham, David Hatten, N4WHL, owned a mimeograph machine with a hand crank on it and he would take my stencils and print the newsletters for me to mail. We also had an annual get-together at a lodge at the Elk Shoals Methodist Campground along the banks of the New River in West Jefferson in Ashe County, NC. I remained on 11 meters SSB for 20 years altogether running a Realistic Navajo TRC-458 as my main radio and had given thought about studying for my ham license and even purchased a book titled "Now Your Talking" at the local Radio Shack store which reminds me of how excited I used to get every year when the new Radio Shack catalog was published! It was like a Christmas wish book to me! Oh, by the way, those old catalogs can be viewed nowadays in an online archive of catalogs dating from 1939-2011 at this URL: https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ 11 meters SSB was exactly like the amateur radio 75-meter phone band with the exception we didn't have to ID every 10 minutes so I was having a blast operating there and one day a 16-year-old friend got on the air and announced to the group he had gotten his ham license and I thought I was not going to be outdone by a 16-year-old so I took the Now Your Talking book off my bookshelf, blew the dust off of it, and started reading it. It was a well-written book written so that you felt like you were being talked to by a teacher as you went through it and it didn't just teach you the exam questions, it taught you the theory so you had a good understanding of what you were learning. Only 2 weeks later that same 16-year-old friend, who I have listed in a short write-up on my QRZ.com profile page where I credit him as my Elmer, came to my house and drove me to the exam session in Yadkinville, NC. I took the Novice and Technician exams that Saturday and passed! I felt 10 feet tall and was so happy! I then bought the WB6NOA Gordan West book for General Class and 3 months later I went to a test session in Statesville, NC, and passed the General Class written exam and the 5 words per minute Morse code test. I had 2 VEs (Volunteer Examiners) tell me to keep studying while I was in the habit and I could go all the way to Amateur Extra Class so I took their advice and bought the Gordan West books for the Advanced and Extra Class written exams. Another 3 months passed and I returned to Yadkinville with the intention of taking the Advanced and Extra written exams and the 13 words per minute code test and I passed them all! The Advanced Class was the hardest exam! It was the one with all the math and formulas that are now in the Extra Class exam since the FCC did away with the Advanced Class licensing although anyone who has an Advanced Class license still has a valid Advanced Class license. The Amateur Extra exam back then was just a review test of the previous 4 exams and I aced it first try! The Yadkinville VEs talked me into trying the 20 words per minute code test that day although I knew I was not ready for it, but thanks to them using multiple-choice questions on the code test answer sheets I got enough of them correct to pass that too! I could barely contain myself I was so happy! I had started only 9 months earlier and had reached the pinnacle of Amateur Radio in only 9 months! I felt drunk when I walked out of that building, the way I felt if I drank a 12-ounce beer straight down in less than 1 minute! I'm glad KF4LLF Seth was driving because I don't think I could have kept my mind on the road. That was 24 years ago as of 2020 and I never looked back at 11 meters after that and pretty much every single one of my friends have gone on to become ham radio operators as well although a couple of them have passed on. Anyway, that's my story of how I became a ham and how radio has been a lifetime hobby, the world's greatest hobby in my humble opinion! Oh, by the way, my mom said that radio was the only thing she ever bought me that I never got tired of!

Now I am age 60 (61 as of May 10, 2022) and have been a ham since October 16th, 1996, Amateur Extra Class licensee with 20 words per minute CW since April 19, 1997. I am now totally disabled after a bout with stage 3 multiple myeloma in 2007 that resulted in me getting severe osteoporosis after it got into my bone marrow and caused 2 of my thoracic vertebrae to collapse one morning at work when all I was doing was leaning over! My back breaking probably saved my life because had the 2 vertebrae not collapsed it may have reached stage 4 (terminal) cancer before it was discovered so it was actually a blessing in disguise because I would never have gone to the doctor if I hadn't gotten so I could barely even walk! I am also an American-born Conservative Christian and a Southern Baptist, "American by birth, but Southern by the grace of God!" I enjoy many facets of the amateur radio hobby, CW being my most favorite mode, but I also operate on 75 meter HF phone with the 3895 Khz Group and participate in the 7240 Club Friendship Net held daily on 7240 kHz from 10 AM until 12 noon Eastern Time and occasionally check into the Ambassadors for Christ Net held daily at 2 PM Eastern Time on 7280 kHz. I also enjoy a few digital modes as well. My favorite digital mode for ragchew QSOs is Feld Hell also called Hellschreiber. I also operate FT8, FT4, JS8Call, and PSK31 digital modes and have been using a software app for Windows PCs and Android devices called "Peanut" created by David, PA7LIM. It allows me to use D-Star & DMR digital utilizing only a headset via VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) over the world wide web. You can learn all about Peanut and view 2 short videos about it here. My newest radio, a Yaesu FT-991A will allow me to operate on C4FM Yaesu System Fusion and I hope to start using it soon, not many repeaters in my area with the capability so I'm hoping to purchase a hot spot in the near future so I can use it without the need for a repeater. I prefer Feld Hell digital mode over most other digital modes for ragchew QSOs on HF, mainly because it's shorter transmit duty cycle is much less than many other digital modes so it doesn't heat up the radio's final MOSFETs (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) as much as some other digital modes that have 100% transmit duty cycles. Feld Hell has a 22 to 39% transmit duty cycle with FM105-Hell a.k.a. FSKH-105 having a transmit duty cycle of around 80%. In comparison PSK31 has a 100% transmit duty cycle. Duty cycle is defined as the maximum time a transmitter may transmit within a five-minute interval, expressed as a percentage. I also served a decade as an ARRL Official Observer until the ARRL replaced the OO program with the current Volunteer Monitor program.
More about me can be found on QRZ https://www.qrz.com/lookup/ku4gw

Very73!
"Cliff, KU4GW"

Proud Member of the ARRL A-1 Operator Club (*Elected to Full Membership April 11, 2012)

Proud Member of the NC Piedmont Chapter 126 and the
International Quarter Century Wireless Association

Member of these other fine organizations as well:
A1 CW Club
A: Attract People to CW,
1: One world by Morse Code,
C: Courtesy to Beginners.

N4LNR - Lenoir, NC Amateur Radio Club (LARC)
FELD HELL # 0062
FT8-DMC #07470
EPC #27746
DMC #6362
SKCC # 652C
100WAAW # 1358
NAQCC # 1491
FLYING PIGS QRP INT. # 1183
4SQRP # 536
FISTS # 16001
30CW# 30CW127
QRP ARCI # 15877
QRP ZOMBIE # 867
SOC # 952
VAGABOND # 399
7240 Club # 1303
South Cars # 1967

"CW is an art of incremental improvements over a lifetime, getting ever closer to an ideal of perfection which is always moving and always presents a new horizon to strive for."

"It's not the class of the license the amateur has that matters, it's the class of the Amateur holding the license that does!"​

April 3, 2022​