I have been a Ham since 1989. Picked up my Novice, Technician, General and Advanced tickets that year. I managed to earn my Extra Class ticket in 2000 (yes, I AM a LOW CODE EXTRA).

My wife, Loree (KB7VIW), is also a Ham (no-code Tech but I'm working on her) and her call is KB7VIW. I have a 21yo daughter Heather (KE7EIO), 23yo son Corey (KD7TPS), 37yo daughter Wendy and a 10yo grandson named Nikolas. Hopefully Nikolas will become a Ham some day . He now lives near us in Springfield, OR and says he wants to become a Ham! Yay!

Rig is presently an Icom IC-706 MkIIg with a forty-foot guyed tower given to me by Mrs. Flo Nichols, a good friend and the wife of now-sk Jerry Nichols. I use a TH-34a Tri-Band. I am also active on psk31, working towards "DXCC" and "WAS" using www.eqsl.cc exclusively. In other words, if I don't get the qsl from eqsl.cc, I won't submit it for the award.

I now use a home-built AMD Athlon Quad core with 4G memory and Ham Radio Deluxe. I started out using a P200mmx with SuSe 6.4 Linux, with Ted Williams' (WA0EIR) Linux-based psk31 program called "twpsk". He's a great guy and was been very helpful with my setting-up problems.

I have been a not-so-active member of Lane County Sheriff's Amateur Radio Operators (LCSARO) over 16 years, as well as a past Vice President of the Valley Radio Club of Oregon (www.valleyradioclub.org). I am not as active in LCSARO as I used to be however, since I drive almost 2 1/2 hours a day to and from work. I know they miss me (but their aims are getting better!!)

And I firmly subscribe to the tenet that "A Clean Desk is the sign of a Dirty Mind". You can see that from my really old picture, right? Once I get my new Hamshack built ("real soon now"), I will take another hopefully cleaner photograph.

I am most active in the Willamette Valley on WO7Z's excellent Mary's Peak repeater on 145.13. I commute to Oregon State University daily from my home in Eastern Springfield (Camp Creek area).

I am also active on APRS, and you can track my location at http://www.aprs.fi.

Look for you down the log!

73 Jim Darrough, KI7AY