Welcome to

 W4GKR's Ham Station(s) - Thirty years of interesting antenna times!
 Thanks for the visit my Amateur Radio site.
 The following information is the best I can remember.
 At the ripe old age of sixty (60) years, I now have
 difficulty remember what I had for breakfast, let alone
 what happen over fifty (50) years ago!

1. WA4GKR BASED OUT OF GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA FROM 1972 - 1975
2. WA4GKR BASED OUT OF WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA FROM 1975 - 1999
3. W4GKR BASED OUT OF LIVINGSTON, TEXAS FROM 1999 - PRESENT
4. I/WA4GKR OUT OF GENOVA, ITAY FROM 1980 - 1981
5. DL/WA4GKR OUT OF BERLIN, GERMANY FROM 1980 - 1999
6. DL/W4GKR OUT OF SPANDAU-BERLIN, GERMANY FROM 1999 - PRESENT
7. EA8/W4GKR OUT OF MONTE LEON, GRAN CANARIA ISLAND FROM NOVEMBER/
   DECEMBER 2001


The seeds were sown in the desert or in my case among rocks and
gravel of our dairy farm in lower Mighigan. ie; I swear the fields
and specially the garden was 50% rock! Dad (Fred/WB8GBW &
Lucy/WB8JLW) and mother were both amateur radio operators.
Both were Tech's and Dad had a wonderful two (2) meter and six
(6) meter kilowatt station. Mom only worked a little 2 meters. A sixty
(60) foot Rohn 25 tower up on the 200 foot or so hills over looking Dad had a nice set of FM and SSB two meter antennas. A real
working six meter 6 element long john Hygain yagi. YUP! I heard
the pile ups on Dad's signal for years. But, nothing happen for another
twenty years or so. After baseball, basketball and girls I guess.

I finished my education at Michigan State while working full time
at Oldsmoble Division of General Motors in Lansing, Michigan.
Was now pretty much full time on the "Girl Subject". Got married and
took the little girl up to Northern Ontario fishing the next
month. Dad always told me, start out as you can hold out!
I left the little girl home working as I went Moose hunting that
fall with the boys at work. I think I might have sown some seeds
about this time that would develop some 28 years later?

I then took a new job with General Electric's Gas Turbine Division
in Evendale, Ohio. Worked by butt off for five hard years. I then
transferred to GE's Large Gas Turbine plant in Greenville, South
Carolina in '70. We bought a nice place up on a two hundred foot hill
(honest I did not know!) with 26 very large 70 foot plus oak
trees. The property back up against Art/K4YYL QTH. And to put me
into double jeopardy, I was working at GE every day with George/
W4BUW. After spending hours at Art's QTH listening to him work the
"JA" pile ups and being pumped by George's Climson EE expertise
I got the "BUG"! Art/K4YYL and a friend that for the life of me I
can not remember his name or call, gave me a broken down Heathkit
SB-301 receiver. I spent some wonderful days, nights, weeks getting
parts from Benton Harbor and getting it playing! I put up a 40 meter
invert Vee antenna in the big oak just in back of the storage room
in the garage with the hot water heater and the yard stuff. Well the
yards stuff soon went that away and a old kitchen counter top went along
the back of the "Shack". It lasted about a week listen to that old
SB-301 on the 40 meter Vee with all the DX rolling in and I was
bugging the boys about how to I get a license to transmit? I wanted
in on the action!

Well poor old George (W4BUW) spent hours with me on the technical
aspects of amateur radio. I got the call WN4GKR and my xyl got
(I think) the call WN4GZH. The first month with a neat homebrew
2 element 15 meter antenna with a "armstrong" angle iron lever
out the back window of the "Shack" storage room, I worked 143 DX
stations with the 15 meter beam up about 15 feet on a TV mast.
Well the "bug" now broke out into a full fever! The doctors just
shugged their shoulders and walked away shaking their head. There
was no pills or vacines that could help the sitution. The only hope
was to work as much DX as possible to control the fever at a safe
level. The homebrew 2 el. 15 meter soon gave way to a TA-33sr. on a 30
foot telescoping TV mast on the other end of the ranch house. I was
to learn later that the 60+ foot of coax coating was a delicacy to
the numerous fuzzy tailed tree RATS! I drove a piece of pipe into
the ground and mounted the Ham-M roto on the stub sticking out of
the gound. The Radio Shack TV mast had rings at each of the ten foot
levels, thus I had a thirty foot rotating tower with a TA-33 on top.

The xyl and I soon made the trip down to Atlanta one morning at 5
AM. I was a nevous wreck and my code copy looked like I was back on
the farm in the chicken yard! The xyl's looked like it came off a
computer! She would have been an excellent code operator if she
would have had the desire. We both got our general and I was working
DX on SSB till the wee hours of the morning. I then got the advance
a month later after driving poor old George/W4BUW nuts! Everything
was running smooth.Wrong! The 1973 oil shortage shut down the peak
power Large Gas Turbine business. So I transfer to Wilmington, North
Carolina in '75.

We found a nice place close to Wrightsville Beach, about a quarter mile
across the road from the tidal flats. I get an old telephone pole
from CP&L. Put it up myself. This is an interest tale, so I think I
will save this for the "Stories" folder later. I put the old TA-33sr
on the 40 foot pole with now a new 40 meter kit. All four bands worked
well. At least I thought. I was working DX like crazy, and it was a
year later that I found out that a four element quad at double the
height works a lot more "good" DX. The story on getting the Rohn 25
tower is interesting, so I think I will put it together later in the
"Stories" folder. Had twenty five (25) great DX years in Wilmington,
North Carolina as WA4GKR. Made the honor roll, needed the P5 and still
do! I have lots of stories from NC. Hurricanes, lighten stikes, dropped
quads, Pirates in the India ocean (this one is good one on the Calispo)
are just of the potential good, around the camp fire, tales of joy or tears.
Five of us started the Azeala Coast Amateur Radio Club, most of whom I have
for gotten their names & Calls. Charlie/K4UWK from GE, Sam/KB4IL &
Buddy/N4CTJ from Dupont, Bob/W4LWS from the Core of Engineers, and
and a neighbor of Charlie (a gal name Martha) whom I forgot the call.
We worked a bunch of DX and built the multi-intests club up to some
sixty members. We used to spend most nights up on 28.700 Mhz chatting
about this and that. Worked a lot of DX. It was not long before I ran
into Uli/DK2OC and the 10 meter 28.700 DX net was hot stuff!

Now for the rest of the story. It was suggested that I take a new job
at Generous Electric or I could retire. I choose to retire! I had a
great and super interesting job as the New Product Introductions Project
Leader and the other offer was not my cup of tea. So the money is now
about half of what it was, the kids are all grown and gone, the ex-xyl
now decides (the prior 28 year old seeds sprouted) she would be much
happier with my GE stock than me. So I start doing some serious travels.
I had been traveling over to Berlin for years visiting Uli/DK2OC and
putting on a traditional American Thanksgiving Day party for some 12 -
16 of Uli's radio and close friends. A few years ago I was up to my ears in
trouble in Uli's kitchen making the Turkey (Puter in German) gravy when in
comes this gorgeous blond little blue eyed German girl! Well what a
surprise! Well not only is she beautiful, runner, hiker, swimmer,
mountain climber, boater; she is also available! Well I revert back to
my teenage years, ham radio takes another back seat, and I spend the next
year sweet talking this cute little blond girl from 3 thousand miles!
Now that is tough work! Thanks for E-mail, long distance phone lines
and a few trips I finally caught the little blond from Germany.

Now if you think I have stories. Wait till you hear from my little
mountain climbing blond German girl. One of the best is she was on
Mt. Everett in 1995, caught in camp with alitude sickness, when that
blizzard with twelve foot of snow hit and got some of the world's
best mountain climbers. You need to read "Up into thin air" to get
some understanding of the situation this German climbing group was in!
So I plan to leave all her stories for her web folder. Just hope she
will share just a few of them!

So I find that Ina (my new xyl) has a more serious travel bug than I do.
So we have been full time RV'g around the states for the last three
years. We have some neat stories and places to share. We spent last
summer climbing around the Alps. As a side issue, Ina was raised in
Switerland, so the stories and mountains go on from there. I have
been able to operate from some places other than "stateside". I only
been using the IC-706 and usually a piece of wire in a tree. So the
P5 is still out there for me. But you want to have fun, try a piece
of #18 wire 60+ feet straight over head of the RV with the IC-706
and PSK or in fact any digital mode.

So I hope to share some my great times and with a little luck, I hope
we can get the little girl to share some of her stories as well. Check in for up dates! .... 73 ... W4GKR/Rich