My Dad

I've been an amateur radio operator for many years.  If I recall correctly, I earned my Technician No-Code license back in 1997.  I had just finished my four year enlistment in the Army and returned home.  While waiting for college to begin its Fall semester, I stayed with my parents in Florida.

 Dad was in the radio business back in the early 70's and was an electronics technician in the Air Force for twenty years.  He was a radio jockey and he built our family TV - a Heathkit I think.  To this day I can still vividly recall him pulling open the drawer which held all the calibration guts to jiggle bits around.

He brought home our first computer, a TRS-80 Model III, and we'd sit and play around with it.  He'd type in code that I read from Byte magazine and then we'd trade seats.  He'd take it apart to tinker inside as I watched him fiddle with things.  When Dad "graduated" to the Tandy 1000EX, I inherited the TRS-80.  When we sold the TRS-80 (sad day in retrospect) I got my own computer - the Commodore 64.  Eventually I got the Tandy when Dad got his fancy Intel 286 system.  Today, I'm in the computer business.  I do UNIX systems work, programming, VMware, and EMC storage.  My title says that I'm a security engineer, but I still tinker!  I owe my career to my Dad for bringing home that TRS-80.

When I got out of the service Dad was already a ham.  I'd sit with him and work repeaters on 2-meters, do some experimenting with packet, and tinkered around with APRS.  It was all more than enough to get me excited about radio.  Computers and radios?  Yes, please.

I picked up the Gordon West (WB6NOA) Technician study guide from the local Radio Shack.  (Radio Shack was a second home to us it seems!)  I studied that book and sat the exam.  When I passed I sat around clicking "Refresh" on the FCC database site just waiting to see them issue my callsign.

KF4PTH!  It was official.  I grabbed Dad's HT and threw out my call.  I was received by one of the very hams who only a week or two ago had been a VE at the exam.  I was nervous and shy.  Strange now that I think about it ... I was a telecom specialist in the Army and used radios extensively.  HF, VHF, UHF, and even those (at the time) fancy-shmancy satellite rigs.  But I got tongue-tied on my first amateur radio conversation!  How goofy is that?

I moved off to college and did some studies.  Got my first computer job there at the university.  Over time I moved on to greener pastures in my career path.  But through it all I had my radio. 

Thanks, Dad!  Get your General Class so we can set up a sked!  :-)