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« on: December 12, 2016, 11:48:07 AM »
In another posting Buddy mentioned he likes to hear details about new members backgrounds. So, here goes.
I was interested in tinkering with radios before I was a teen ager. My Grandpa, W6DWC got me hooked on Ham Radio during a summer visit to his place over in California. My neighbor K7CUZ taught me Morse code and helped me get my Novice license.
In 1966 I joined the US Army and was trained in Electronics repair at the Ft. Monmouth, NJ Army electronics school. I graduated from their as a "Fixed Station Receiver Repair" technician trained on R388, R390, R390A and other receivers. I was stationed in Germany near Karlsruhe with a transportable communications company. Working with that equipment was like being on permanent Ham Radio Field Day. We covered the entire HF radio spectrum from 2Mhz to 30 MHz and provided 32 channels of teletype plus 4 channels of voice. The transmitters were 10KW and 40KW output.
After the Army I hired on with AT&T Long Lines, the long distance company for AT&T working in the Phoenix, AZ central office. Eventually I climbed the corporate ladder over the next 23 years until after they busted up the Bell System. It was a great place to work until then. I learned about telephone systems and networks and about data communications systems and networks. During all this time with AT&T I was transferred from place to place every 2 or 3 years and eventually gave up on AT&T while living in Fresno, CA and went to work for Sierra On-Line as their System Support Manager. That job lasted for about 4 years.
After Sierra On Line moved to Seattle Washington I left them and opened my own Telecommunications Consulting business in San Antonio, TX.
I absolutely loved working for myself. It was a lot of hard work, 16 to 18 hours per day, 6 or 7 days a week but I loved it. Then in 2001 the bottom fell out of the Telecommunications industry and I went to work as a systems consultant for a company in Indiana for a couple of years, then as a Field Service Manager for Black Box Network Services, then finally wound up in St Louis working for the best company of my career, Edward Jones LLP. I was their Senior Network Consultant for all their voice telephone systems. There were over 12,000 telephone systems with 36,000 telephone lines scattered all over the US, Canada and the UK. It was a lot like running a small telephone company. They were an outstanding company to work for and they really cared for their employees.
Then in March, 2016 I finally gave up working for a living and retired to Hot Springs Village, AR. That's where I am now and loving it. It's like being on vacation permanently. The forest here is beautiful. We are surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest and their are 13 lakes within a half hour drive.
Okay, that's enough about my boring past. I am in the process of building up my workshop with enough test equipment to repair my own ham radio equipment and even scratch build some gear. I'll post stuff about the equipment as I get it working.
Thanks for all you do, Buddy. You have an outstanding forum here that is full of good ideas and tech tips. Wow, I didn't mean to make this so long. Oh well, think I'll post it anyway.
73 Frank de K7RMJ
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