N4ESS Richard E. 'Rich' Kennedy Zephyrhills, FL QCWA # 36296

The above photo is me operating from WP2Z, St. Croix, USVI. I was there with Bill Coleman, N4ES and his wife Tammy. Bill and I operated CQ WPX CW, 29-30 May 2004, from that station. It was absolutely the greatest time ever so we did it again. We operated from WP2Z Feb 19-20, 2005 in the ARRL DX CW contest and took second place behind V31TP in the Multi-operator Single Transmitter category.

The N4ESS/B 10 meter synchronized beacon is on the air on 28250.0 and transmits on the top of the minute. It is synchronized with other beacons on that frequency that transmit only in their own time slot. For information see www.n4ess.com.

ARRL: Life, 10-10: 73231, 4SQRP: 731, QCWA Life: 36296, NAQCC: 0477, FISTS: 8570, SKCC: 4683C, QRP ARCI: 9988, Flying Pig: 3276, South CARS: 10142, Feld Hell: 3543

Member and President for 2014-2015: Lakeland Amateur Radio Club (LARC) Lakeland, FL. Club Repeater (Yaesu DR-1 System Fusion) K4LKL, -146.685, 127.3 tone, with a weekly net on Thursday evening at 19:30 local. If you are in the area please join us. The repeater is active and you can almost always find someone ready to answer your call. VE with ARRL and Laurel. LARC offers testing prior to the monthly meeting each month. Laurel amateur radio testing is free. The LARC monthly meetings are on the first Monday of each month starting at 19:00 local. The meetings are not business meetings but are filled with monthly presentations on a myriad of topics. Come out and join us as visitors are ALWAYS WELCOME.

I am still enjoying the hobby after almost 50 years in it. CW is my main mode and you can regularly find me on 160 - 6m in the CW portion of the bands. I only started using 2m FM recently to take part in our club activities along with Peggy, N4PEG. I will have her copying code in the future. Now you will find her on 20, 15, and 10 making sure that her new Extra Class ticket does not lay idle. She loves DXing on SSB and is learning fast. Field Day proved to be another favorite activity for her and she will be an avid participant for years to come.

As a young ham in the 60s I had friends that had some great radios. Tube radios and high voltage made ham radio an adventure for any ham. Glenn Mosher, ex-WA8QVQ, had a Globe King 500B transmitter. Glenn now lives in Slovenia with his extremely pretty wife, Suzanne. I met Bill Coleman, N4ES,in 1970 in the USAF and struck up a life long friendship. Bill is in Columbus, NC. now and is a great CW DXer.

December 18, 2015