I was born in 1945 and was first licensed as KN3WWP in April of 1963. I upgraded to General in the fall of 1963, and to Extra when incentive licensing came along in 1968. From 1963 to 1973 I spent most of my hamming in county hunting, contesting, and rag chewing. In 1966 I co-founded the CW County Hunters Net with WA8EOH. The story of the creation of the net is in the county hunting section of my web site.

I started work at WPIT in Pittsburgh in 1969, and continued working there until 1993. That cut down on my hamming, keeping me off the air entirely for several years. I was able to get in some hamming from 1981 to 1983. I continued my county hunting, rag chewing, and contesting. It was then that the 30 meter band became available to amateurs. It quickly became one of my favorites and remains so today.

In the early part of 1993, WPIT was sold, and all the employees were released. I decided to semi-retire. About that time, my friend Eric (who is now KB3BFQ - NAQCC #2345) wanted to know all about ham radio, and we put my station back together and I got on the air again. I have been very active since then, concentrating on contests, awards, rag chewing, and DXing. I've now had at least one QRP QSO each day since August 5, 1994. I've had over 55,000 2XCW QSO's with minimal QRP - 5 watts or less output into simple wire antennas - since I returned to the air in 1993, making a total of over 75,000 2XCW QSO's since 1963. I've only had about 5 QSO's that were not 2XCW - those were testing out friends' rigs for them on AM or SSB.

I am the Vice-President (#0002) of the North American QRP CW Club (NAQCC) that promotes the use of CW at QRP power on the ham bands. The President is Tom Mitchell, WY3H (#0001, ex-KB3LFC). The NAQCC web site is at http://naqcc.info/. You can sign up there to join and help us preserve CW on the bands by participating in our sprints, monthly challenges, and awards program. Lifetime membership is completely FREE with no obligations other than to be active using CW on the ham bands. The NAQCC Awards program includes the following (with my award number in parentheses):
WAC (0001)
WAS (0003)
DXCC (0001)
1000MPW (0001, 0022, 0023, 0052, 0053, 0083)
KMPW (0002)
QSO-A-Day (0001 for each full year from 2005 through 2011)
2XQRP (0001)
Alphabet Prefix-USA (0001)
Alphabet-Prefix-World (0001)
Friendship Club (0001)
2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011-Participation
Suffix Words (0002).

I am very active in the NAQCC(#0002)and FISTS (#2002), two great organizations that promote CW use on the ham bands. I also belong to,but am not very active in,the following amateur radio organizations: A-1 OP, ARS #285, AK QRP #010, ARRL, NJ QRP #53, NorCal QRP, OTC, QRP ARCI #1880, RCC, SOWP #5686TA, 10-10 #66579.

I hold the following awards and endorsements in addition to the NAQCC awards listed above: ARRL WAS (QRP CW 40M), IARU WAC (QRP CW), ARRL DXCC (CW), CQ USA-CA 1500 (CW), CQ WPX (CW 160M 80M 40M NA HONOR-ROLL), FISTS Century, FISTS Century QRP #002, FISTS Century 2XQRP #001, FISTS Platinum #220, FISTS Silver Century #310, FISTS Golden Century #198, FISTS Diamond Century #92, FISTS Millionaire.

I hold the following code proficiency certificates: ARRL CP-35, SOWP-40 WPM. I write a monthly QRP column for the FISTS newsletter, Keynote.

In addition to hamming, I like fishing, computing, astronomy, meteorology, and walking. I hope you'll visit my web site and learn more about CW operation with minimal QRP.