Mark Milburn, KQØI says:
Welcome to my web page!

Nice of you to drop by.  Here's my story...

Personal stuff:
   I was born in 1933, went to Lincoln High School in Des Moines, Iowa,  and graduated Drake University in 1955 with a BBS and a major in  accounting.  Shortly afterwards, I spent some time in the US Army at the invitation of the president and some of my close friends at the draft board.  After returning from active duty in 1957 I went into public accounting, passed the CPA exam in 1963 and then continued with an accounting career,  finally opening my own public accounting practice in 1978 and ending with my retirement in 2002.

   Florence and I were married in 1954 while I was still going to college,  and our family quickly increased with the addition of Steven, Bruce, Rebecca and Beverly.  We old folks still live in Des Moines, Iowa but the kids are raising their own families in various parts of the country.  Eight grandchildren have been added to the clan  and we feel very blessed.
 

Ham stuff:
   The ham bug struck in high school when I thought I wanted to be in TV and radio repair and bought a bunch of old non-working radios.  I somehow managed to avoid being electrocuted and got a few radios working and discovered the short wave bands on some of those old Atwater Kent sets and enjoyed that so much that I decided I wanted to be on the air some day like the amateurs I heard. It took a long time (no money, no time, no Elmer) but in 1964 I finally got my first license as WNØNMA and then progressed along through the license classes as WAØNMA until 1983.  With the Extra class license in my hand, I decided to change my call and I have been KQØI ever since.  My passion is QRP CW, but I dabble in about anything I can get going.  I spent some time in MARS and  doing traffic nets, and I operate on CW, SSB, Packet (both RF and Internet), PSK, RTTY and SSTV.   I am a member of ARRL, FISTS, Flying Pigs, QRP ARCI, The Iowa QRP Club, and the Des Moines Radio Amateur Association.

   The equipment at KQØI is a TenTec Jupiter transceiver for both QRP and QRO HF and an old Yaesu "Memorizer" for 2 meters.  The backup rig is another TenTec, the original Delta.  On the "For QRP only" side there is an Emtech NW series for 40 meters.  I also have an Alinco handheld for 2 meters, used mostly when in the car.  I use a pretty poor dipole antenna up about 20 feet off my back deck for HF, fed with ladder line and using a Dentron tuner, and a ground plane antenna for VHF.  Not a contest winning setup, but give me a call if you hear me on the air, and let's see what we can do.
 

Internet stuff:
   My computer was built by a friend using an AMD K-6/2 400 MHz cpu.  Web pages are created using the NetScape browser.  Packet is processed using WinPack, FBB  and two MFJ  TNC.  I'm still a novice in computers, but trying to learn.

Some of my favorite places on the internet   are:
  Flying Pigs QRP Club
  Iowa QRP Club:
  QRP ARCI:     http://www.qrparci.org
  The Hunger Site:   http://www.thehungersite.com
   Propagation: http://dx.qsl.net/propagation

Thanks for stopping by.  I would enjoy hearing from you.

72/73  Mark
Email: [email protected]
Instant Messenger:  markkqØi
Packet:  KQ0I@KQ0I.#CIA.IA.USA.NOAM