N8QQ Bradford A. 'Brad' McConahay Cincinnati, OH QCWA # 37117 Chapter 9

I was originally licensed as N8MFG in 1990 and then received the call KF8NU while upgrading in 1991. I got the call N8QQ in the first wave of vanity applications in 1996.

Digital Voice
My most recent interest in radio revolves around a couple digital voice modes on VHF/UHF. I started with D-STAR in 2010, and just recently got into DMR in late May 2016. Current equipment includes an Icom IC-92AD, DVAP, and DV Dongle for D-STAR, and the Tytera MD-380 and DV4mini for DMR. For both modes, I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 with ircDDB, D-Star Repeater, and DV4MF2.

Weather & APRS
I've been interested in APRS in one form or another since the late 90s and currently have a weather station on the air as part of the Citizens Weather Observer Program. I built our local Skywarn group's website at warn.org. Cincinnati Skywarn is WARN, the Weather Amateur Radio Network. The look of the site hasn't changed much since its original design in the late 90s and it's slated for a responsive upgrade sometime soon. I also run a feed of the audio for our weather nets to Broadcastify.com.

HF & Awards
In the early 2000s, I spent a lot of time working for awards and frequenting awards nets. My HHH Net number is #794 and OMISS number is #4408. I was also pretty active with 3905 Century Club nets and earned some awards on RTTY and voice there. And I have the ARRL Worked All States single band 40m award. I'd like to start on DXCC at some point, but I'm not sure yet of the route that might take. (QRP?)

Work & Hobbies
I've been doing computer programming of some sort since the late 80s. I did Internet development and system administration work for NetCrafters from 1996 to 2014, and now I do the same type of work as a freelancer and independent contractor, mostly with Perl, PHP, MySQL, and Apache on Linux. Debian and Ubuntu Linux are my server weapons of choice.

Other interests include playing drums, guitar and keyboards, writing & recording original music, computer programming, electronic gadgetry, and radio related stuff of all kinds. I've also developed a penchant for "virtual storm chasing." It's amazing how closely you can follow severe weather events online these days from the safety of your own home. (Unless it's your area that's under the gun!)

I'm on the web at n8qq.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/bradmc, and on Twitter at twitter.com/bradmc.

June 16, 2016