Had the pleasure of a QSO with Dick, N5KIP, this morning.
From his QRZ.com page:
“Born in 1944, I became interested in shortwave radio as a teenager. With school, work and raising a family, however, didn’t obtain my amateur license until 1987.
In May 2017, after 42 years in Baton Rouge Louisiana, XYL and I moved to Plano Texas to be near family including two grandsons. Home grid square is EM13oc.
HF operations are primarily CW and occasionally at QRP power. I also intermittently work, FT8 and SSB. My home rigs include a Kenwood TS-590SG and an Icom IC-7300. Antennas are a thirty meter long horizontal loop, and a 22 meter long off center fed dipole. I use an automatic antenna tuner (LDG or Mat-Tuner) on both simple wire antennas. QRP rigs include a 20 meter Small Wonder plus, 80 meter Small Wonder DSW-II, K1, KX1 and a couple of Rockmites.
The SKCC Triple Key Award was obtained in April 2019 and was a great challenge as well as lots of fun. Keys involved were an E. F. Johnson Speed-X bug Model 114-520 (made from 1947 to 1972), W1SF torsion bar cootie (use left hand to facilitate switching between bug and cootie with less confusion), and a GHD GT501MIL straight key. In September 2019 a VIZKEY vertical bug was added to the collection and is currently my most used key.
I enjoy kit building, SKCC activities, rag chewing, casual contesting, QRP fox hunts and have been known to work portable from a tree stand. Log is uploaded regularly to LoTW.
I recently have had several enjoyable SKCC Marathon contacts (a QSO of 60 minutes or longer between two SKCC members with the SKCC required exchange, using a manual keying devices and requiring submission of a summary of the contact by both stations). Please let me know if you are interested in scheduling a marathon QSO. See my email above.
Club numbers: FISTS 8653, CC 1639, Flying Pigs 1399, NAQCC 896, MQFD 195, SKCC 3755S, QRP-ARCI 12752 and Bug Users Group 172. Also a member of the DFW Contest Group.
Additional hobbies are birding, guitar, photography, target shooting, and reloading. Had a sailboat for a number of years on Lake Pontchartrain but do not have a boat here in Texas. Closest I come to the water now is taking the grandkids to the community pool. I retired in 2010 as a physician (hematology and medical oncology) and the medical director of a hospital cancer program.
73, Dick N5KIP