ABOVE: Yours truly providing public-service communications for the 2010 Ann Arbor, MI Fourth of July Parade.

Although I've had a ticket since 1971, I was never very active UNTIL I got hooked again after going to our club's 2002 Field Day activities. Since then I have really gotten back into the hobby:

• I work mostly CW on 40m, 30m, 20m, and 15m with an IC-746PRO and an assortment of wire antennas, including a fan dipole with 40m and 30m legs (which makes it usable on 15m and 10m as well) and a 20m ground plane antenna. I also built an Elecraft KX-1 and have a lot of fun operating it portable from parks on battery power.
• I've increased my code speed to 30 wpm. Feel free to send that fast if you read this while we're in contact. I'm proud of this achievement, and am continually trying to get guys to work more CW.
• I regularly participate in contests. I especially enjoy the smaller contests, such as the state QSO parties, and have even garnered a few certificates for being the highest scorer from the state of Michigan.
• I am the station manager for WA2HOM, the amateur radio station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.
• I'm serving as the ARRL MI Section Training Manager. My colleague, Bruce, KD8APB, and I do a regularly-scheduled One-Day Tech Class. In addition to actually teaching classes, we're now teaching others how to conduct one-day classes as well. We use a study guide that I wrote a couple of years ago. An e-book version of the study guide is also available.
• I also teach a General Class license course. Over the last five years, I've helped more than 50 Techs become Generals. I don't know about my students, but I am learning quite a bit by teaching the class. :) We're going to be conducting this year's class at the Hands-On Museum. Contact me for details.
• I have the #1 ham radio blog according to Google. That is to say, when you type "ham radio blog" or "amateur radio blog" into Google, my blog comes up #1. I've been at it for more than five years now, and have made more than 1,000 posts, which have garnered more than 1,000 responses.
• To help more kids get into ham radio, I've written A Parent's Guide to Ham Radio. This is a tri-fold brochure designed to give parents of the kids I talk to a brief intro to ham radio and links to websites where they can learn more about ham radio. You must get parents involved if you want to get middle schoolers into ham radio. Feel free to download and print up as many of these brochures as you need.
• I like playing with antennas. I have a bunch of ideas for different antennas that I want to try, including a loop antenna fed with ladder line, a linear-loaded dipole a la the Cobra antenna, and a homemade hex beam. I also want to learn to use antenna modeling software.
• I am collecting as many QSLs as I can from stations whose calls spell out words, i.e. K4MOW, W8BUG, etc. I have close to 100 of these cards now.

Professionally, I'm a freelance technical writer and website developer, although I've been doing more websites than writing lately.