Speaker Biographies

Howard Burkhart is an Emergency Medical Technician, and a Disaster Preparedness, First-Aid and CPR Instructor, who has been on the front lines of major disasters since 1982. He has served as ARRL DEC for a fifth of L.A. County since 1990, and been a member of L.A. County's DCS since 1990. Howard has also been a member of L.A. County's Disaster Medical Action Team since 1996.

Karl Cox, KE6CEI, is the Communications Coordinator, City of Rancho Cucamonga, Rancho Cucamonga Fire District, and the Supervisor of the City's Auxiliary Communications Service, which includes ARES and RACES. He has been with the district for over 30 years in a variety of capacities, the last 14 years providing communication services, and 6 years with the ACS program.

Novice 1951, Now Extra Class. Race Director, Baldy Peaks 50K, eleven years. Aid station captain and communications on Ultra distance runs for over 15 years. Emergency communications on freeway problems almost (25 years at 100 miles five days a week). Member of the Claremont Amateur Radio Disaster emergency Service.

A native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn, but lived in Queens. Attended NYC Public Schools-graduated form Richmond Hill HS and on to Long Island Univiversity in Brooklyn for a BA in Marketing an MBA in Marketing and an MA in Counseling.

A Ham-WB2JKJ- since 1962 Joe was President of his HS Radio Club and the LIU club during his senior year serving as Treasurer for two years prior to the Presidency.

Upon graduating college Joe went to work for the NYC Board of Education as an English teacher. After a few years of Dick & Jane and see Spot run he figured there had to be a way to get children interested and excited about learning and coming to school. What better way than Ham Radio. He went on to write curriculum that uses Ham Radio as the theme to teach and it was accepted and printed by the Board and to this day is the only Ham curriculum certified by a Board of Education in the Nation.

EDUCOM-Education Thru Communication to this day became the only program he teaches. Joe wanted to share this educational success with others and formed a non-profit organization in 1980, The Radio Club of Junior High School 22. Known as the �22 Crew� Joe works full time for the group which is the only non-profit nationwide that works to get Ham Radio into schools as a teaching theme.

Over the years Joe has won countless awards and citations including: Fellow at the Radio Club of America, ARRL Teacher of the Year, Dayton Ham of the Year, Huntsville (AL) Special Service Award, Knoxville (TN) Ham of the Year�Paul Parton-Governor of Kentucky-made him an Honorary Kentucky Colonel.

The �22 Crew� is celebrating their 21st anniversary during 2001 and can be heard daily on the Classroom Net: 7.238 MHz. 1100-1230 UTC and 21.395 MHz. 1300-1900 daily.

Randy Fear, KC6JTN, is Senior Solar Observer at the Big Bear Solar Observatory and will speak on "Big Bear Solar Observatory and the Dynamic Sun". For further information see the Big Bear Solar Observatory web site.

Scott Fraser, first licensed in 1979, now holds an Extra Class license. Scott is employed at Long Beach City College, where he chairs the Electrical/Electronics Deptartment.

Short Public Service History: First event in June '79, when he was rousted out of bed on a Saturday morning by KA6N to help a group in Playa Del Rey put on their 10K run. The previously scheduled "non-ham communications group" dropped out at the last minute. After that event, he started coordinating communications efforts for various 10Ks and marathons with the Hughes Aircraft Amateur Radio Club.

The club typically did 6 events per year. One of the big events that the group did each year, was the Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon in Griffith Park, including the year that the Los Angeles County Disaster Coordinator flew in via helicopter and declared the area a disaster emergency due to the heat and number of injuries to runners. Scott got involved with the LA Marathon in December 1985 prior to the first marathon and has been coordinating the ham radio efforts ever since. The call asking for help asked if he could provide 300 hams to cover the course by the first of March. That was 10 times more bodies than had been used by us in any previous marathon. My life has never been the same since.

Ben Green retired from the U.S. Navy in 1991 after a 20-year career as a photographer. Paralleling his active duty military were such volunteer public services as fire/ambulance, search & rescue, and amateur/citizens band radio emergency communications. Spanning the last 30years, from Michigan & Tennessee to Florida & California, he has held many positions of leadership within those volunteer communications services as well as non-volunteer such as emergency communications advisor to the Emergency Manager of NAS Miramar. He is the former Chief RACES Radio Officer serving the County of San Diego from 1991 to 1995. Since his Navy retirement, Ben continued to apply his volunteer experience by serving in the field with the State of California OES as an Emergency Hire working telecommunications for such disasters as the Wildland Firestorm of 1993 and the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. From 1995 until his current promotion in 1998 he served in a permanent position with the State Warning Center as an Emergency Notification Controller.

Ben is a member of the California Emergency Services Association (CESA), Inland Region Chapter, the International Association of Emergency Managers (formally NCCEM now IAEM), the Associated Public-Safety Communications Officer (APCO) Northern California Chapter, and a Life member of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Currently, Ben continues full time with the State of California, Governor's Office of Emergency Services, Emergency Operations, Planning & Training Division, Operations Support Branch, Telecommunications Section, Sacramento, as Assistant Chief, Telecommunications administering the state's Emergency Alert System (EAS), Emergency Digital Information Service (EDIS) and the Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) programs.

• First licensed while a teenager - 43 years ago
• Worked up through ranks from novice to extra class
• Active on the air
  • DX & Contests
  • HF & VHF
  • Repeaters
  • Packet
• Participates in DXpeditions to foreign countries
  • Member of international team of radio operators
  • Packs a camera to capture his DX adventures
• Life Member, ARRL
• Vice Director, ARRL Southwestern Division (So. Cal & Ariz)
• Involved with clubs/organizations to promote amateur radio
• Works at Boeing - Comm & Info Management Division, Anaheim, CA
  • Develops state-of-the-art electronic systems
• Married / 2 children / lives in Costa Mesa, CA

Amateur Extra Class, General Class Commercial Radio license holder. Commercial Airplane Pilot rating. Chief Radio Officer, Orange County RACES, Orange County Sheriff Reserve Deputy. Member of APCO International (Association of Public Safety Communications Officials), member of ALEA (Airborne Law Enforcement Association), IEEE. Employed by Motorola, Inc. as a Senior Staff Engineer specializing in RF Engineering, spectrum management, radio interference, regulatory and RF hazard, seismic installation standards, and global site development standards. Introduced Amateur Television to OCRACES and the County of Orange. My Amateur Radio interests are primarily in providing and promoting public safety emergency communications through RACES. I am also involved with ATV and SSTV, and operate on all bands from 2m through 75M. I have a growing personal collection of early public safety radio equipment, and have recently developed an interest in getting back on 75M using a restored Hallicrafters SX-28 receiver and a vintage Harvey Wells Bandmaster AM transmitter.

Allen B. Hubbard (N6VTX) was born in Pasadena, California in 1949 and still resides there with his Wife, Cristina (N6ZCS) and Son, Patrick (N6BUG). Allen is employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena as an Assistant Engineer in the Ground Based Observational Systems Division. Before transferring to J.P.L. in 1996, he worked on the Caltech campus for 20 years.

Allen was talked into getting his Amateur License (N6VTX) by friends Bruce Nolte (N6TFS) and Greg Hubbard (N6RRW) in May, 1989. Allen upgraded his Amateur License to General class in April, 2000.

After receiving his license, Allen joined the Pasadena Radio Club (W6KA), Los Angeles County D.C.S. (M-172) and the Pasadena Emergency Communications Group.

Starting at age 16, Allen had worked on floats and other activities for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade, because of this, he happily joined T.O.R.R.A. (Tournament of Roses Radio Amateurs) in 1989 and has worked every parade since.

In November 1995, Allen proposed to the T.O.R.R.A. Steering Committee, a plan to use A.P.R.S. (Automatic Packet Reporting System) for the 1997 Tournament of Roses Parade to track parade float convoys. The A.P.R.S. system uses G.P.S. receivers, packet radio and special A.P.R.S. software to track objects such as cars, boats, balloons or parade floats. After a year of planning, building "trackers", testing and the help of nine other T.O.R.R.A. members, the A.P.R.S. system worked flawlessly.

Allen is a member of the Steering Committee of T.O.R.R.A, as the A.P.R.S. Chairman. Allen is now preparing for the expanded use of A.P.R.S. for the 2002 Tournament of Roses Parade.

Allen was past Vice President of the Pasadena Radio Club (W6KA) in 1997. In 1999 he served as President of the Pasadena Club.

Since 1998, he has worked with Randy Hammock (KC6HUR) and others from J.P.L. to bring about the first time use of A.P.R.S. in the Los Angeles City Marathon.

Jack is 57 year old Professional Land Surveyor and Project Manager with a San Luis Obispo Civil Engineering Firm. He became a HAM approximately 9 1/2 years ago. Having lived his entire life in Southern and Central California, he has experienced most of the natural disasters that California has to offer. With a background in communications from his service days and with experience in responding to emergencies from his tenure with the San Luis Obispo County Engineering Department, he was naturally drawn to ARES and RACES and joined these groups shortly after receiving his License. He served as an ARES Member and then as an Assistant Emergency Coordinator before assuming the Planning and Training Emergency Coordinators post for the San Luis Obispo ARES. After serving in this post, reestablishing the local training program, and editing and rewriting the ARES operational manuals, he became the District Emergency Coordinator and Volunteer RACES Officer for San Luis Obispo in the Summer of 1996. He held these posts until becoming the Section Emergency Coordinator for the Santa Barbara Section in January of 1999. Since becoming the Santa Barbara SEC he has also assumed the position of the ARES Liaison for Southern California to the State Office of Emergency Service and he has been appointed the ARES Coordinator for the Southwestern Division.

Chuck is currently President of 10-10, a position he has held since the recent passing of President Tom Henderson, K4CIH (SK) in March 2001. Prior to moving up to President, Chuck was Vice President, being elected to that position in 1994. Prior to being elected Vice President, Chuck held the position of Director. He was Editor of the 10-10 International News for a period of over 5 years. He is the Chairman of the Membership Committee, PR Manager, and writes a 10-10 column for World Radio. In addition to his many other duties, Chuck has developed several of the current 10-10 Awards, namely the Continents, Counties, State Capitals and Prefix Awards.

Mr. Johnston got involved with Amateur Radio in 1993 when he was first introduced to transmitter hunting. His interests gradually evolved from mobile hunts to on-foot transmitter hunts known as ARDF (Amateur Radio Direction Finding.) He was a member of the US ARDF Team at the World Championships in both 1998 (the first year the US participated) in Hungary and 2000 in China.

John is very active in communications for emergencies. He is an active member of Los Angeles County DCS and the ARRL ARES program. He is one of the most active emergency traffic handlers on the W6FNO repeater system. He is a writer and is also interested in Dxing and computers. John is a Baptist pastor and a volunteer at Braille Institute where he teaches a diabetic support group.

Chip Margelli, K7JA, has been licensed since 1963, and an Extra Class licensee since 1968. Chip and his wife Janet, KL7MF currently live in Garden Grove, California. Chip is the Manager of the Engineering/R&D Department at Vertex Standard U.S.A. (Yaesu), is a Life Member of both ARRL and Quarter Century Wireless Association, and is the International Affairs Editor for "The QCWA Journal.

For over thirty-five years, Chip has been active in DXing and, especially, international radiosport competition. Among his accomplishments are thirteen First-Place finishes nationally in the ARRL November Sweepstakes; three First-Place finishes nationally in the ARRL International DX Competition; one First-Place and two Second-Place finishes worldwide in the CQ World-Wide DX Contest; one First-Place worldwide finish in the CQ WPX CW Contest; and five First-Place finishes for North America in the All-Asian DX Contest. For many years, Chip was an active member of the W7RM multioperator contest team in Hansville, Washington.

Chip's DXpedition activities include operations from St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Saipan, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Martinique, and Barbados. In 1984, Chip and Janet were invited by the Chinese Radio Sport Association to travel to Beijing for operation from BY1PK and help train the new Chinese operators during the early phases of the rebirth of Amateur Radio in China.

In 1989, Chip was honored by being selected to be the American representative in the first-ever Finnish-Soviet-American DXpedition to Malyj-Vysotskij Island as 4J1FS. The following year, Chip and his teammate Mike Wetzel, W9RE, won a Silver Medal at the World Radiosport Team Championship held in conjunction with the Goodwill Games in Seattle, an elite competition featuring twenty-three teams from fifteen countries around the world.

And in the Fall of 1991, Chip was among the key players in the IARU Albania Project, which brought about the rebirth of Amateur Radio in Albania after many decades of radio silence. The ZA1A Team's efforts stand as an example of the considerable goodwill that Amateur Radio's ambassadors can provide to the peoples of the world.

Chip and Janet accepted an invitation by the Federaci�n de Radioaficionados de Cuba to visit the Havana area to document the Cubans� participation in the 1994 ARRL June VHF QSO Party, including operation as CO�FRC, CO2/K7JA, and CO2/WA7WMB. Theirs was the first group of American radio amateurs to be so honored. Feature articles by Chip and Janet appeared in The QCWA Journal and QST in late 1994. Other international goodwill initiatives are in the development stages at this time.

Chip is currently active on all Amateur bands from 1.8 through 1300 MHz, including HF DX and contesting, VHF weak-signal terrestrial and moonbounce work, and satellite operation. Articles by Chip have been published in QST and CQ VHF magazines.

Licensed 1947 as W6CUF, Jim Maxwell also was active as DL4QX, DL4RX, and G5CRE. Currently Jim is active on 80M through 70cm, phone, CW, packet, doing DXing, contesting, rag-chewing. He is on DXCC Honor Roll #1, 5BDXCC, and is a member Loma Prieta ARES.

Addtionally, Jim holds or has held the following: ARRL Life Member; ARRL Pacific Division Director, 2000 to present; ARRL Pacific Division Vice Director, 1994-2000; Member, ARRL History Committee, 2000 to present; Member, ARRL Spectrum Strategy Committee, 1999 to present. Board Liaison to the ARRL RF Safety Committee, 1994 to 2000; Volunteer Resources Committee 1996, 2000 to present; DXCC-2000 Committee 1996 to 1999; Section Communications Manager, Santa Clara Valley Section, 1974-78; Member, DX Advisory Committee, 1988-1994.

Jim retired 1999 after 41 years as an engineer in the aerospace industry. In years past also worked as a shipboard radio operator, a military radio operator, and in electronics manufacturing.

Communications Coordinator for the annual Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run.

April Moell is Emergency Coordinator of the Hospital Disaster Support Communications System (HDSCS) in Orange County and has participated in hospital disaster planning since 1980. Currently, HDSCS supports 35 medical facilities in the county. She has had over 20 years of patient care experience and is a former hospital department head. She is a regular member of the county's hospital disaster committees that plan yearly hospital mass casualty drills, as well as the Orange County Disaster Advisory Group. April has presented at numerous disaster and radio conferences since 1983 and has written articles for medical, government, and Amateur Radio publications. In1996 she published her first book, Amateur Radio: A Communications Resource for Hospitals. A second book written for Amateur Radio operators who are interested in supporting hospitals will be out in the future.

A registered professional electronic engineer and an active ham since age 11, Joe Moell K0OV has written for almost every ham radio publication and designed many new devices for radio direction finding. He collaborated with Tom Curlee WB6UZZ to write TRANSMITTER HUNTING---Radio Direction Finding Simplified, a comprehensive text on RDF, and has written over 150 magazine articles on the subject. In addition to being a Technical Advisor on RDF to ARRL Headquarters, he serves as ARDF Coordinator for both the USA (ARRL) and the Western Hemisphere (IARU). For more information on transmitter hunting, visit Joe's "Homing In" Web site.

Dennis was first licensed in 1962 as WV6WTD in Costa Mesa. He is an active DXer and contester who prefers CW. He currently lives near Carson City, Nevada.

He has operated from over 35 different DXCC entities but island DXpeditions are his passion and including uninhabited rocks piles like KP5, OJ0 and CY9.

Dennis is a past President of the Texas DX Society. He currently serves as Editor for the ARRL National Contest Journal and is on the Board of Directors for the Northern California Contest Club. He was a participant at 2000 World Radiosport Team Championship held in Slovenia - WRTC is the Olympics of ham radio contesting.

Bruce enjoys emergency communications as a volunteer monitor on W6FNO since 1989. Bruce is the designer of the Jun�s Electronics repeater maps and wrote the Southern California Ham Radio Resource Guide. Professionally, Bruce is a freelance director of photography for documentary film and video production.

Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, is a Broadcast Engineer with KTTV Fox 11 Television in Los Angeles. He is the co-founder and Managing Editor of the all-volunteer Amateur Radio Newsline bulletin service and Creator/Administrator of the annual "ARNewsline Young Ham of the Year Award" program that each year honors the accomplishments of a radio amateur age 18 or younger with a trip to Spacecamp in Huntsville Alabama. Bill is the only person ever chosen to be recipient of both the Dayton Amateur Radio Association's "Specific Achievement" (1981) and the prestigous "Radio Amateur of the Year" (1989) awards. He also was prssented the ARRL National Certificate of Merit in 1995 in recognition of his contributions to the furtherance of the goals of the Amateur Radio Service. Bill and his wife Sharon (KD6EPW) reside in Santa Clarita California. He is the author of three books, co-producer of several educational films and videos, writes a monthly column for Worldradio Magazine and is a frequent contributor to CQ Magazine. Bill can be reached by e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected].

Michael Reagan is a librarian, and faculty union chapter president, at California State University, Northridge. His checkered career includes U.S. Navy service, social work, public library work, seven years in data processing, and eleven years in academia. He was involved in the World-Wide Web early, putting up library web pages in 1995, and teaching web technology to faculty colleagues since that time. Visit Michael's page for more information and links to the ham radio related websites he maintains.

David Rutledge, KN6EK, is Tomiyasu Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. He serves as Executive Officer for Electrical Engineering, and Director of Caltech's Lee Center for Advanced Networking. He received the B.A. in Mathematics from Williams College; the M.A. in Electrical Sciences from Cambridge University; and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkely. He has won the Microwave Prize, the Distinguished Educator Award of the MTT, the Teaching Award of the Associated Students of Caltech, and the Doug DeMaw award of the ARRL. He is author of the electronics textbook, The Electronics of Radio, published by Cambridge University Press, and co-author of the microwave computer-aided-design software package, Puff, which has sold 30,000 copies

Dr. Shuch has been Executive Director of the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) League since its inception in 1994.  As an amateur (N6TX) since 1961, Dr. Shuch has been active on all bands from 160 meters to 24 GHz, and has proposed to speak about "Searching for Life Among the Stars," which he feels will appeal to the ham audience.  Dr. Shuch is no stranger to ham conventions.  He was the banquet speaker at the Dayton Hamvention in 1996.  Further information may be found at:  http://www.setileague.org/admin/paul.htm

Ted Schultz, N6RPG, is the Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), Southwestern Division, Orange Section. He first became interested in emergency communications using amateur radio in 1988 when he was a special education teacher in West Covina and joined the school's "Safety Committee". The school was prepared in every way - except how to contact outside agencies if/when the phones weren't working. While in West Covina, he helped provide emergency communications to the City by becoming involved with the West Covina Office of Emergency Services where he was their "Training Officer" for a couple of years. In 1991, he moved to Ontario, California. While there, he became involved with Ontario RACES and served as its CRO from 1992 - 1993. A couple of years later, he was contacted by the director for Salvation Army's Riverside and San Bernardino Region and asked to create a Corps group of amateur radio operators which would be able to provide his organization with communications during emergencies. After getting this group "off the ground", he left this newly-created organization to devote more time and energy to his Schools group which helped organize the "Youth Activities" for the 1997 ARRL SW Division Convention in Riverside, California. At the 1998 ARRL SW Division Convention in San Diego, California, he was appointed as the SEC and has enjoyed working with ALL amateur radio organizations that provide emergency communications as he coordinates such activity within the ARRL's Orange Section. Shortly after he moved to Phelan, California, he has become active in the Snowline Disaster Preparedness Team, an emergency communications support group for the Snowline Unified School District which covers the communities of Baldy Mesa, El Mirage, Oak Hills, Phelan, Pinon Hills, West Cajon Valley and Wrightwood within the county of San Bernardino.

Rod Stafford W6ROD. Santa Clara Valley Section Manager 1983-1986. ARRL Pacific Division Director 1986-1990. ARRL Vice President 1990-1995, ARRL President 1995-2000. Superior Court Judge, Santa Clara County. Licensed in 1977. Married to N1PAT.

With an extensive history of education in electronics and electrical engineering, Robert has been involved in radio communications since he was eight years old and became a licensed Amateur radio operator at ten years. Robert has worked in the commercial and ham radio industry, manufacturing and representing Maha's energy storage products. Seen nation wide at conventions and club meetings, Robert has been speaking on the changing technology of batteries for over four years. He has since moved on and is now working for Pacific Gas & Electric at the Technical and Ecological Service department in San Ramon, CA. R&D includes electric vehicles and improved technology in secondary storage and power generation.

Cynthia Wall, KA7ITT, is the author of the popular Amateur Radio Adventure Series. Cynthia enjoys talking to Oregon school children about writing and Amateur Radio. Her brother, Steve Jensen, W6RHM, has been the technical advisor on all the books.

             

Rosalie White, K1STO, has been with ARRL for 20 years. She is manager of Field & Educational Services, which has a staff of 12 people who have oversight over emergency communications, education, and many other volunteer ham radio programs. She became a ham radio operator in 1970, and is originally from Indiana, where she earned her BS from Indiana University, and taught science in the Indianapolis public schools. She enjoys casual contesting, is a private pilot and likes hiking.