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WA5QGM Nathan L. Axton Cooksville, IL QCWA # 38589 |
Bio for WA5QGM
I passed my Novice test in 1965 and was licensed as WN5QGM. I saved enough money to buy a Hammarlund HQ-110A and my Dad bought me a used Johnson Valiant I, and I hit the novice bands. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble mastering code, so I had passed the Tech license test prior to my Novice ticket expiring in 1967, so I've been continuously licensed since 1966. For the next 4 1/2 decades, I was solely on VHF. In 1999 I upgraded to a General class and in 2018, an Extra ticket.
In the 70's, I passed my 2nd class Radiotelephone License, and went to work for Tandy Electronics in Tulsa. This was when the CB craze was really taking off and a 2nd class ticket was required to service CB's. For the next 15 years I repaired thousands of CB's and marine radios. In late 1992, I quit Tandy and went back to college majoring in CIS and Math. When I finished, I was hired by State Farm Insurance and ultimately transferred to Illinois to work in their IT shop, finally retiring in 2017 after nearly 24 years.
I am now back on HF after a 50 year absence. In the early 70's, I traded in my HQ-110A and bought a new Drake R-4B receiver, which sat unused for all these many years. I still had the Viking Valiant I (along with a Heathkit SB-10 SSB adapter) and a couple of years ago, I acquired a Drake T-4XB transmitter. I love my old boat anchors!
Currently I have a 40-meter dipole up. But this spring (2022) I will finally put up my Rohn 25 tower, in storage for 50 years, and set a new Mosley tri-bander atop along with the 40 meter dipole conversion kit. Eventually, I hope to get back on 6-meters as well, so another beam might see the top of that tower as well. I'm currently honing my CW skills and I'm up to 16 WPM. I really enjoyed CW as a Novice all those years ago and I'm enjoying it once again, abet at a much faster speed and hopefully even faster soon.
October 10, 2022