Amateur Radio
I  started getting interested in ham radio when I lived in Cleveland, Ohio when I was around 10 or 11 years old. My father gave me a crystal radio as a birthday gift and I remember listening to a couple of hams in Twinsburg, Ohio. Years later while I was attending John Adams High School, I met Ray, W8ISK. Ray invited me to see his shack and I remember him working a station in California on 6 meters. I was hooked and  decided to trade  my Whizzer motor bike for a BC-455 Command  receiver that Ray owned. I memorized the code and began listening to hams on 40 meters. After I was able to copy some of the slower stations I contacted an old friend of mine, George Lewis, W8GQX, and he agreed to administer the Novice exam to me. I passed the test, but had a rough time with the code test. I needed 25 characters in a row and that was the most I ever got (I copied 25 characters twice during the 5 minutes he sent to me. I still have the piece of paper I used to write down the test code.) On June 18, 1959 I was assigned KN8PXG.

I passed my General Class amateur radio examination in December, 1959 and my callsign was changed to K8PXG. I kept K8PXG until February, 1997 when I applied for K8WJ. Since I was living in Pembroke Pines, Florida at the time, a friend asked me why I didn't apply for K4WJ. I told him that the call was currently assigned to someone. He reminded me that K4WJ was a silent key. I did some research and obtained documents, that the FCC accepted, and I was assigned K4WJ on April 8, 1997.

I prefer to operate CW and can be found on the low end of 80/40/30 meters. I will be on 20, 15 and 10 as soon as I get my quad back on the air.  The current rig is a Ten Tec Omni C which I purchased new  in 1981. I use a WBL Paddle and a Logikey K1 keyer. The antenna for 80/40/30 is a Butternut HF-2V vertical that is ground mounted on the edge of a small man made lake. It currently has 11 radials of varying lengths, most of which are around 135 feet long. I added the 30 meter resonator kit to get on 30 meters. The HF-2V does an excellent job on all three bands and I would recommend the HF-2V to anyone that wants to use a vertical on 80/40/30 (with the 30 meter resonator kit).

Personal Information

 I was a radio operator in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Hazelwood, DD-531, (callsign NAVJ) from March, 1963 to April 1965. In April I was  assigned to the USS Randolph, CVS-15. I left active duty in September, 1965. I operated as K8PXG/MM while I was aboard the Hazelwood and enjoyed using the ship transmitters and antennas to work other hams around the world.

I went to work for AT&T Long Lines on March 14, 1966. I met my wife Susan while she was working for Ohio Bell in the same building. I transferred to Detroit and spent 7 years there before transferring to Florida to supervise the transmitter site of WOM, one of AT&T's three High Seas Radiotelephone stations. It had 132 acres of rhombic, log periodic and various other antennas. There were ten 10 KW SSB transmitters on site.

It was a fun assignment and I had the pleasure of working with Dan Bauer, AC4K, who was one of the finest technicians I ever met. Dan had a mint KWM-1 that he connected to one of the rhombic antennas pointed toward the Caribbean. He worked a station that would not believe he was running a "barefoot" KWM-1 because it's signal was pinning the needle of the other station's 'S' meter.

I was assigned to the Kennedy Space Center for the first 4 Space Shuttle launches. This was a very exciting experience.  While working at the press site I met Aaron (Ron) Spiro, W2AO. He worked for CBS and handled the audio portion of the TV signals. I had worked Ron on 20 CW and he was an excellent operator.

I retired from AT&T on May 3, 1997 after 31 years of service. My wife, Susan, retired from BellSouth at the end of 1996. During her 32  year Bell System career, she worked for Ohio Bell, Michigan Bell and finally BellSouth. We have a parrot lory and her name is Mimi. Lories are known as the "brush tongue parrots" because of the little whiskers on the end of their tongues.
 

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