QSL.NET Advertising Info

           Welcome to K5FNI's Ham Page
(I like the image, but promise that I'm not sending CW from a discone to an electrified kite!)
 

My name is Rick Herndon. I moved to Mathis, Texas (June 2008), when my wife was transferred here as senior pastor of the First United Methodist Church.  Soon after arriving, I started getting my station back together after several years inactive in Ganado, Texas.  So far, I have plans for:
a.) my mobile station: a Yaesu FT-7000M with a magnet mount antenna
b.) my home station (HF - 160-10m CW/SSB/AM, VHF - 2m FM, UHF, 70cm FM) (IC-735/IC-756/FT-817/FT-2700RH)
c.) a 20' chain link fence top rail pipe with a dual-band VHF/UHF vertical antenna & 6m Ringo
d.) an 80m/160m dipole
e.) a 40m/30m dipole
f.) a Cushcraft R-8 multiband vertical

Being new to the area, I thought the best way to meet new folks was to get active in a local club. I've joined STARC (South Texas Amateur Radio Club in Corpus Christi, Texas) and have met several local hams for lunch in Mathis. I participated in the Live Oak County Field Day with several other hams.

My fixed station is housed in a surplus language lab teacher's console with 3" rubber tires. This facilitates moving the station out from the wall for changes taking place in equipment, power sources, cabling, or antenna changes.  I hope to soon have a photo of it on the page.

I've been licensed since 1961 (one year as Novice station KN5FNI) with the same call sign. During that time, I've operated stations in San Angelo TX, on the USS Catamount (LSD-17) from various Pacific Ocean locations, from the US Naval Amphibious Base at Coronado CA, in Austin, Bastrop and Ganado TX, and now in Mathis TX.

I'm an inactive registered professional engineer (Electrical with a BSEE from UT Austin in 1975) and  retired (August 2003) from a position as radio operations engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), where I managed a system with 10,000 transceivers on both low-band VHF and high-band VHF, along with about 25 HF SSB stations across the state set up for emergency operations.

If you wish to contact me, drop a line to me at my call sign at the ARRL (dot) net forwarding service. 

Here's a photo of me, taken during our Bastrop County ARES 2003 Simulated Emergency Test. (I'll eventually figure out how to make this photo smaller.)