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Gary Donner but many folks call me "Whitey" QTH:
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Even though I did not get a license until early 1972, I had already been building homebrew receivers and other equipment in the mid 1950's, and was an avid Short Wave Listener. After coming home from overseas in the Military Service in the mid 1960's, I started to study as time in my busy schedule would permit. Quite some time passed until I finally received my Technician ticket with the callsign WB8NLL, which at that time would allow me to work Phone on 6 meters and above, also CW on a few HF novice bands. I did a lot of DX chasing on 15 meters during cycle 21, which netted 117 countries by 1975. During 1975, while on a vacation trip to Wisconsin, I stopped off at the FCC office in Chicago, and took my 13 wpm code test. With me doing mostly CW for a couple years, the 13 wpm test was a breeze.
The General Class license gave me plenty of opportunity and bandwidth to do most anything that I wanted, which was mostly CW and RTTY. For a few years, my activity was up and down.... more down than up, but I finally got going again in the 1980's. My wife got interested in Amateur Radio in late 1997. In early 1998, she took her Technician Plus test, and passed. More study, and later in the year she passed her General Class. Together we were, and still are working the paper chase on 10 meters, and having a load of fun with it. I got interested in Teletype again, and Carolyn (Wife) liked that mode as well. I spent some time off and on in the hospital, getting some operations.
This slowed the radio pace down a bit, but in early 1999, Carolyn decided to take her Advanced Class test..... not to be outdone, we both took the test, and both passed. In August of 1999, we together took our Extra Class test, and again, both passed. By that point in time, we were mixing both of our favorite activities.... Ham Radio, and Star Trek. Several members of our Star Trek Club were hams, and a few others were studying for their license. Presto, Carolyn applied for a Club Station license for the USS JURASSIC, and was approved. Things got even better, and we decided to get Vanity calls for both of us, and the Club Station. I became K8BE, which is a nice short call for working pileups and CW, and Carolyn got the callsign of N8ST, which she says "N8 Star Trek" and the club's vanity is K8SSJ ... K8 Star Ship Jurassic, which is the name of our Ship/Club. One of our members who lives on Vancouver Is., in Canada, changed his club station call to VE7SSJ.... our sister station.
Our activities these days include.... Some 10 meter paperchase, SSTV mostly on 20 meters, as well as 145.50 mhz on 2 meters FM and PSK31, and now even some Hellschreiber. Slow Scan has evolved light years since I saw my first demo of it in the early 70's. With most everyone using computers these days, it is very simple to connect a transceiver to the sound card in the computer to send and receive slow scan. No camera is needed to send pictures, but a digital camera or camcorder can make some live scans. One can find a good deal of information, well explained, on the web about the digital modes, so if you want to get your feet wet in the newer digital types of modes, the info is readily available.
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