I have been a ham since 1984. My primary ham interests are:

1) Having fun with the radio

2) Emergency Communications

I am currently a member of the Western Tidewater Radio Association (WTRA), the Franklin (that's Franklin City, VA)Amateur Radio Club (FARC), Franklin Police Dept. ARC (WT4FP) , Virginia ARES/RACES, and QCWA Chapter 119. I serve at the pleasure of the club as the callsign trustee for the FARCcall WF4RC. I have served in various roles in the clubs including President, Vice-President and Secretary and Trustee.

If you are around on Thursdays at 7:30PM (147.195 PL100Hz + links)or Sundays at 9:00PM (146.91/444.825 + links) jump in and join us the our nets.

Currently, I am the District Emergency Coordinator for VA ARES District 10 and the EC for Isle of Wight County. I serve (along with a great team of folks!) a 5 county area including Isle of Wight, Southampton, Surry, Sussex, Greensville and the independent cities Franklin and Emporia. If you live in the area and are interested in emergency communications feel free to contact me at the email listed below. We would love to have you join us! As part of my ARES/RACES service I have participated in the response to commications emergencies caused by Hurricane/TS Floyd (1999), Y2K (anticipated), 9/11 Pentagon attack and Hurricane/TS Isabel (2003).

I have been a member of the Muskegon Area Amateur Radio Club (MAARC-W8ZHO), the Muskegon Amateur Radio Public Service Corp andthe Michigan State University ARC (W8SH).

Usually I am running a Kenwood TS-2000 (love the rig by the way) and have an Icom 735 (oldie but a nice rig) as a back up. For a radio that glows in the dark I can fire up a Heathkit SB101 with the all the accessories. The coolest part of the old Heathkit gear is the nixie tube frequency display!

I am also on the repeater committees of the WTRA, FPARCand the FARC. Iam the primary controller programmer for the WT4FP (444.825 and 147.27)and the KG4GEJ/WF4RC repeater (146.91). Ihelp wereI can with the Isle of Wight/Smithfield machine (147.195). We have set a series of remote bases on the repeaterto link the 147.195, 444.826 and 146.91 together for the weekly nets and emergency communications needs. The repeaters in Franklin and Isle of Wight are located at sites with generator back up so they will be on the air when needed.

I like to operate all modes and particulary enjoy the digitals modes. I am setup to run the sound card modes and have really enjoyed DM780 included with Ham Radio Deluxe. What a fantastic software package. If you need Isle of Wight for county hunting drop me an email and we can arrange a schedule. We can make that contact in any HF mode you would like!