WB4KTF Glen A. Jenkins Houston, TX QCWA # 31080 Chapter 27

I am WB4KTF, Glen Jenkins. Prior to starting my BSEE degree at the University of South Florida in 1968, I took my Novice exam (WN4KTF), upgrading to General and Advanced over the next year or so. While at USF I joined the USF Amateur Radio Club, and during my four years was the secretary, treasurer and president. The USF Jewish Student Union also interested me so I joined and was president of it for a year. During this time I upgraded my station to a Heathkit HW-100. This led to my 1973 trip to Arad, Israel, a small town thousands of years old located in the northern Negev desert. Here I started my engineering career as a control systems and instrumentation engineer, and operating as WB4KTF/4X. During this period I received my Israeli license 4Z4VF, since changed to 4X1GJ. I met my future wife, Esther,in Arad and we got married on the day of the Yom Kippur war cease fire. Our daughter, Heilla, was born in Beersheva a year later. We moved to Lakeland, Florida, in 1976 and operated for 2.5 years before moving to Houston, Texas where son Ilan was born in 1979. Both kids are now lawyers. We have 2 grandchildren Maya and Max from our daughter. We used our new Kenwood TS430S and a Wilson 3 element beam for years.

In 1992, I was assigned to Moscow, Russia, where for the next 7 months I worked torwards getting a license. After giving away gifts of vodka, whiskey, two homebrew CW transmitters, and $120 I managed to get the first license issued to an American to operate from his own apartment, R3A/WB4KTF. I operated from the Mezhdunarodnaya Complex on the Moscow River near the Russian White-House for about 7 months before moving to my own apartment with my family. I operated from the 12th floor, just 3 blocks north of the Kremlin, using my Kenwood TS430S and an AEA ISO-LOOP antenna into Europe, Asia and Africa. Our assignment was completed in December 1994, so we returned to Houston, Texas, away from the cold and snow. Hey, we Texans don't like the cold.

Back in the great State of Texas, I now have a TenTec OMNI VII, Yaesu FT-991, Collins KWM-2A & 30L1, & FT817nd in the shack, with a FT-7900 in the car, a homebrew 2 element- 5 band EI7BA spider quad at 40 ft, 135 ft Long OCFD, a 4 element - 6 m beam at 20 ft & dual band 2m/70cm ground plane at 20 ft, and a 2m 4-element + 70cm 6-element quad at 40 ft, . My station has 100% Solar Power available using 350 watts of solar panels, a set of 4x100Ah Gel-Cells and a FET charge controller. I can be found mostly on 6,2,17,20 and 12 meters.

I joined ABB in 1979 and am still with this great company. I'm a Principal Consulting Engineer in Oil & Gas for ABB; ABB is an electrical and industrial automation supplier. We provide process control systems to the Oil&Gas, refining, and chemical industries.

December 14, 2015