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The K8BM Story
Here is old K8BM relaxing after a tough day chasing DX on 20 meters. I am 78 years old, married for 51 years to Helen, have 5 children. 2 boys and 3 girls and 12 grandchildren. I have lived my entire life in Cincinnati except for 4 years spent in the Air Force. My basic training was at Sampson AFB in New York, spent 9 months in radio maintenance school at Scott AFB in Illinois, 1 year of duty at Osan AFB, Korea and 2 years at Fortuna AFS in North Dakota. I retired in 2000 after working for the local Motorola 2-way service company for 40 years. Since retiring, when not playing radio, I maintain 4 websites, all charity jobs and volunteer at the local no-kill animal shelter. After retiring the wife and I did quite a lot of traveling, 3 vacations to Europe visiting France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary, plus a host of other vacations in the USA, 18 trips total. We live outside the city of Cincinnati on 1/2 acres on a nice quiet dead end road. I enjoy yard work and we plant a few tomatoes every year. Our real fun time is with our two dogs, a basset and a part basset hound. Both dogs came for an animal shelter and we couldn't be happier with them. The wife and I are both active in the local Catholic Church. I maintain their website and the XYL does numerous volunteer duties as needed. I was licensed in high school in 1950 under the call sign of W8HBR. My first rig was a Johnson Viking I and my receiver was a Hallicrafters SX-43. As I progress through the years I owned a Viking Ranger, Collins 75A2, Collins KWM1, Kenwood TS430D and now a Kenwood TS570D. I obtained my extra class in the 70's and then changed my call to K8BM. The linear in the photo is an Ameritron AL80B.
Station from the 1980's -
My interest in ham radio has remained steady throughout the years. Now I operate all bands 10 through 80 meters using the digital modes, ssb and sstv. The antennas are a Mosley TA34XL with single elements on 17 and 24 meters and 4 elements on 10, 15 and 20 meters, on a 60' tower. The Alpha Delta wire at 50 feet serves the 30, 40 and 80 meter bands. QSLing these days is only through eQSL unless a paper card is received with a SASE. Logs are kept on EQF software. On sstv I use Easy Pal and MMSSTV and my computer interface is the MFJ-1275. I have retained all my paper QSL cards dating back to 1950 and also have printed copies of all the eQSL's I have received since using that service. Member of the Belgium Club SSTV BCS#482, European Phase Shift Keying Club EPC #10118, 30 Meter Digital Group #2508, ARRL DX Century Club #10,198 (335 countries confirmed) |
