KC5LK Biographical Info
Greetings and welcome to my humble shack. I was first licensed
in 1978 as KA5AFT. I kept that call until early 1981 when I requested
a callsign change and received my current call KC5LK.
In the years that followed my activity level has covered the
spectrum from being QRT for 7 years to very, very active. I have helped
to establish one Amateur Radio Club and served as an officer in a
another. I am currently a member of the American Radio Relay League,
Jackson Amateur Radio Club,
Magnolia DX Association and
Chiltern DX Club, and
to help give something back to my hobby I am
an ARRL VE, a Bureau Assistant in theW5 Incoming DX QSL Bureau,
and a DXCC Card Checker.
Like most hams I have tried many of the exciting and a few of the
not so exciting aspects of Amateur Radio. At the present my principal
interest is DX on the HF bands. There are slowly developing ideas
of 6 Meter DX, but those ideas are still rattling around in the brain.
The DX bug was slow to bite, it was eighteen years after I received my
first ticket that I finally made my first DXCC submission in Febuary 1996,
it contained 103 Entities. Even with that it took another two years
for me realize that I really enjoyed DXing. Since then as the saying
goes, "The rest is history". My Brag Wall now proudly displays
Plaques for DXCC Honor Roll, 5 Band DXCC, and DXCC Challenge. I also
have DXCC certificates for the following modes Mixed, Phone, CW, and RTTY,
and for all bands 80 thru 10 Meters.
My QTH is located in the central part of the state of Mississippi about
10 miles (16KM) SSE of Brandon. The gridsquare location is EM52ad. The station is
equipted with a Icom IC-706MKIIG and a Kenwood TS-140S. Kenwood 2M FM radios
are used for packet and FM simplex operations. The HF antennas are a
Cushcraft A-3 at 68' (20 Meters). Dipoles are used for 80 and 40 Meters and for
the WARC bands I use a G5RV antenna that was designed for 40 Meter operation but has
proven to be more than adequate thus far for WARC Band operation. For the digital modes I use a 2.4 GHz
Celeron running Windows XP Home Edition and MixW 2.18 software. A RigExpert
interface completes the connecton between computer and radio.
If you are a DX station and would like to exchange QSL cards, send
your card with QSO data and a SASE or a SAE with $1.00 USD or 1 IRC to my
CBA Address.
All other DX cards will be returned via the buro. Stateside QSL requests
MUST contain a SASE or they WILL NOT be answered. For all stations I upload
my logs at least once monthly to the Logbook of The World. I do not use
the services of e-QSL.
73
John, KC5LK