KB2GD Mark J. Christensen Lockport, NY QCWA # 36451 Chapter 65

I grew up in Lockport (Niagara County), NY and have spent nearly my whole life here. One of my earliest memories of radio was from 1965, when, at age 11, I saw and heard a crystal set built by my friend Al from Alfred Morgan's book, "The Boy's Second Book of Radio and Electronics". I was very impressed. Al is now AE2T and is still active in amateur radio. A few years later, I had the good fortune of having a good friend Paul, who knew through church, Doug, W2FAN. Doug invited us to his shack in which resided a Collins 75A-4, 75S-3B, a Central 200V and an ASR-15 teletype machine. Doug was active in MARS at the time, and one of my first memories of amateur radio was watching Doug handle MARS traffic through that incredible station. We were hooked. We registered for novice classes taught by W2RUI at the local Civil Defense Center, passed our exams and the FCC awarded us the sequential calls, WN2GNG and WN2GNH (Paul) in July, 1968. We were both 14 years old at the time.

After passing the Novice exam I built a Heath HW-16 novice transceiver and had a great time on 40 meters with a dipole and a handful of crystals. Passed the General Class exam in 1970 and the Advanced Class exam in 1978. License history follows:

Novice Class: WN2GNG granted 1968

General Class: WA2GNG granted 1970, expired 1975

Advanced Class: KB2GD granted 1978, expired 2007

General Class: KC2ZMR granted 2010, replaced 2011 with vanity call KB2GD

Elmers: W2FAN, W2RUI, KB2EE

Station: ICOM 729 & AT-160, Collins 75A-4

Antenna(s): 40m, 20m, 10m center-fed parallel diploes. Single coaxial feed with current balun at feedpoint. Feedpoint height: 13 feet

Modes: CW & SSB

My brother, KB2EE, an RF engineer at Harris RF Communications for many years, has mentored me back into the hobby and I am now enjoying it more than ever. My shack has the benefit of being a test bed for much of the vintage gear that he owns, some of which I will likely own. Great fun to operate so many different radios, experiencing the pros and cons of each.

I work fulltime as a Component Engineer at a local electronics firm, but have managed to work over 90 countries since 2011 with very low antennas.? I am looking forward to achieving DXCC in the near future and taking the Extra Class Exam in 2015.

July 09, 2015