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Hamcon Colorado 2009Forum Speakers |
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Katie, W1KRB was the Membership Manager for the ARRL from March 2006 to October 2008. During her tenure at HQ, she worked to develop new programs and improvements to services for the league resulting in a membership exceeding 154,000 -- the first significant increase in membership in well over a decade. Through a variety of initiatives and some creative marketing strategies, she helped generate new excitement and energy with hams young and old alike. Among her notable and popular programs, she created and ran real-time blogs and posted videos on youtube.com bringing ARRL HQ to life for hams around the world. She also became very active in the revitalization of the ARRL Employees Club Station W1HQ – the Laird Campbell Memorial Station, of which she was voted Vice-President. As membership manager, one of her favorite aspects of the job was getting out around the country to local hamfests, club meetings and conventions and meeting the many diverse people that enjoy ham radio – after all, that is where ham radio is happening – with the people! Katie has a degree in Urban & Regional Planning from Central CT State University. She worked throughout Connecticut in city and regional planning, was director of two transit districts and executive director of an award-winning Main Street program. From there she revitalized and old firehouse into an award-winning coffee bar/bistro. Katie now resides in Devils Tower , WY with her husband Dwayne WY7FD and is the Director of Planning & Community Development for the City of Gillette , Wyoming.
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Mr. Scott Allen has been an employee of Lockheed Martin since 1985. His first 10 years consisted on assignments in the defense division of the company, working on communications systems for ballistic missiles. In 1995 he began work on Telecommunications for the Mars Surveyor 1998 Orbiter and Lander development program, and continued into mission operations for Stardust (comet sample return), Mars 2001 Odyssey Orbiter, Genesis (solar wind sample return), Spitzer Space Telescope and Mars Reconnaissence Orbiter. He transitioned back into spacecraft development for Phoenix in 2004 and continued into the landed mission, working the project to completion. Mr. Allen received a BSEE from the University of Nebraska in 1983 and is originally from Omaha, Nebraska
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Richard P. Buckner, P.E. ACE-HF Mr. Buckner has specialized in VLF/LF/HF communications system design and analysis for more than 50 years, and has recently designed HF system simulation software for use in military, commercial and amateur radio applications. ACE-HF is based on the similar ACE-VLF software Mr. Buckner developed to support U.S. Navy strategic systems. He retired from Rockwell Collins in 1986 after 23 years with Collins Radio and Rockwell Collins. In 1994 he became an independent consultant with assignments on various Defense programs that led to the ACE (Animated Communications Effectiveness) concept—a method for depicting VLF submarine connectivity, and then to the ACE-HF NETWORK software now in used by most U.S. government agencies. ACE-HF PRO software for hams derived form that work.
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Al Dawkins, KØFRP & Dick Schneider, ABØCD. Both Al and Dick have been former presidents of the Colorado QRP Club and serve on the club's executive board. Al coordinates the CQC Competitive Field Day operations, which generally wins whatever battery category it enters, and Dick is co-founder and coordinator of the club's "Aloha" Field Day site, designed for fun, family and getting kids into ham radio on ARRL Field Day.
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Nate Duehr, WYØX, was first licensed as an Amateur Radio operator in 1991 as NØNTZ. As a personal computer owner since 1981, Nate's passion has always been inter-networking of computers for communications. His initial interests in Amateur Radio were in Packet Radio and other digital modes. He has volunteered for numerous volunteer roles in the Amateur Radio community, including serving for a time as the Secretary of the Colorado Council of Amateur Radio Clubs, and is a currently a member of the CCARC Frequency Coordination Committee and President of the Colorado Repeater Association. He works as Senior Technical Support Specialist in the Elite Services team at Polycom, Inc. as an expert in audio and video teleconferencing, and is also a FAA licensed Private Pilot. Current Ham Radio interests include VHF and above weak-signal contesting, repeater building and operation, linking of radio systems with Voice over IP technology, and D-STAR
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James Duffey, KK6MC, was first licensed in 1965 as WN0MWN in Brookings, South Dakota, now EN14oh. He holds an Extra class license and has also held the calls WA0MWN and N7ATB. First licensed when novices had two meter phone privileges, his first VHF activity was with a Heathkit Twoer and a homebrew 3 element beam in 1965; rockbound on 145.2 Mcps. He returned to VHF weak signal work in the late 90s and began actively roving in 2007. He has activated all 22 of the grids in NM as a rover and is now pursuing a reverse VUCC. He holds the Rocky Mountain Division January VHF and August UHF limited rover records, although, to be honest, he is the only one to have ever entered in those categories from the Rocky Mountain Division. Jim is an active QRP op and has been elected to the ARCI QRP Hall of Fame as Dr. Megacycle. He is an ardent HF contester as well and enjoys satellite contacts through the linear transponders. Dr. Duffey has a PhD in Solid State Physics from the University of Nebraska and his professional life is spent working for SAIC in Albuquerque as a Senior Scientist specializing in infrared detectors, electronics for space, and high power microwave effects. He much prefers building VHF/UHF antennas on the kitchen table though. Virginia, official KK6MC/r driver and photographer, is not so sure
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Lanny is currently the manager of the Twelfth Region Net (TWN) of NTS Cycle 4. A former EC and DEC (Kansas), Lanny will lead a discussion of Public Service Nets (PSN) . Topics include a definition of Public Service Nets, identifying a tentative list of Public Service Nets, a listing of potential clientele and updating a list of PSN contacts. Time will also be available for Section officers to recognize exceptional accomplishments in their section. The format of the room will be circular seating with no specific presentation to be given. Everyone in welcome to participate!
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Steve grew up in Michigan and was licensed as an Advanced class, WB8GIA, in 1971. Moving to Colorado in 1978, he earned is Extra in 1979 and became AIØW. His interest and operating has always been with the technical side of HF. He has built or homebrewed many receivers, transmitters, and transceivers and has experimented with many wire antennas. He is a frequent presenter at local radio clubs. Steve is a member of the 285 Techconnect Radio Club, Colorado Repeater Association, Colorado QRP Club, QRP Amateur Radio Club International, Michigan QRP Club, a Colorado Technical Specialists, and ARES participant. He lives near Bailey, CO, with his wife, Sally, and Luke, his wonder dog.
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Mike serves as the SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network) Western USA Territorial Coordinator, an area that includes 13 western states. Prior to that he served as the Intermountain Division's SATERN Coordinator, which includes Colorado , Wyoming , Montana and Utah . He has been a ham since the mid 1990's and got his General in the spring of 2008. For two weeks in September of 2008 he served as the Deputy Area Commander for The Salvation Army's Hurricane Ike response in Texas . He is employed by The Salvation Army as the Emergency Disaster Services Coordinator for the metro Denver area since 1985 and often serves as The Salvation Army's Incident Commander for larger emergencies and disasters in The Salvation Army's Intermountain Division. Following the Windsor tornado of this year and the Holly Tornado where he served as the Incident Commander. Mike Gelski was born in Denver Colorado and grew up in the Greeley/Kersey area, graduating from Greeley Central High School . Mike is married and has 4 children and 3 step children from ages of 16 to 32 and lives in Aurora CO. He enjoys performing music with three of his children and is blessed with two grand children. As time allows, he enjoys photography.
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Before joining the ARRL, Mike was an electrical engineer in the aerospace industry. He holds a B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Bridgeport and an A.S.E.T from Hartford State Technical Institute. First licensed in 1974 as WN1SVF, Mike now holds an Extra class license and enjoys rag chewing, portable operation and project building. While at the ARRL, Mike served as the Product Review Test Engineer for seven years. He's been at the ARRL RFI desk since 2002, primarily assisting in power line noise and other Part 15 interference cases, writing articles and editing ARRL books pertaining to RFI.
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Gordon Hardman, WØRUN Gordon was first licensed as ZE1DC in 1967 and is an avid contester and DXer, winning country and continent awards, as well as handling many pileups from Rhodesia. A life member of AMSAT and the ARRL, he was employed by AMSAT to work on the Phase 3B satellite. Gordon is the chief engineer at Alpha/Powe All are welcome, but you must have a ticket for this event.
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Mike as had his Ham license, K6AER for 46 years. He is an Extra class ham and a BSEE RF engineer for over 35 years. Comtrain certified tower climbing instructor, RSI trained in RF safety and OSHA requirements for tower, broadcast, building and occupational safety. Mike also design total building grounding systems including power management and is the President of Tallon Engineering, a consulting company. He has been engineering in the broadband wireless sector for the last 15 years. Most of Mike's operating is on HF SSB from Elizabeth, CO . Other hobbies include sport motorcycles, raising horses and flying.
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Kelly began his radio career at an early age. He vividly remembers getting his first pair of walkie talkies as a Christmas gift around age 5. During the late seventies and after several sets of walkie talkies, he hijacked an old CB radio from the family car. While in high school, he spent many evenings talking to the locals and dreaming of working the distant stations that he'd hear. Eventually several of his friends decided to take the amateur radio exam and talked Kelly into joining them. Everybody passed and on January 5, 1985 his first license arrived in the mail. That afternoon in a driving snowstorm, a dipole was strung from the roof of the house out to some trees. It was official, KA9SYF was on the air! DXing has always been Kelly's passion. From the early days of hearing those distant signals on 11 meters to present day, there is still magic in being able to talk to somebody half way around the world. During his college years, he found a way to string a wire from his 11th floor dorm room in order to work DX. During that time he worked on improving his country count between studying and chasing the young YLs. Kelly actually achieved DXCC before accomplishing Worked All States. Over the course of the last 20+ years Kelly has managed to achieve DXCC Honor Roll only needing 3YØ/B, KP1 and a good 7O. He has also been climbing the DXCC Challenge ladder with around 1,800 band countries, Kelly has also been an active DX cluster sysop since the early days, putting his first node on the air in 1994. Today he keeps busy with his DX oriented website, DX Central. Kelly has recently taken up the exciting hobby of traveling to tropical islands and running the pileups from the DX side. Pictured here is Kelly enjoying the pileups on PJ4. The last frontier for Kelly is 160 meters and he has been aggressively pursuing the 160 meter DXCC endorsement. He's active on all bands and you can be sure if there is a good pileup, he'll be calling. If you happen to hear him on the air, please say hello.
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Virgil Leenerts, WØINK, is a retired electrical engineer from HP/Agilent Technologies and has been a licensed amateur since 1953. Currently he is active as an ARRL Technical Specialist for the Colorado Section and a part time engineering consultant. Virgil has an electronics lab at home, which serves his interests in electronics as a hobby and vocation. Virgil's interest spans the analog world from DC to Light including power supplies, audio, RF, and antennas.
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Bill became a licensed amateur radio operator in 1954 and presently holds an Extra Class License issued in 1959. Previous calls have been W3ZBE and K0RZJ. His amateur activities cover 1.8 MHz. through 47 GHz. Routine operating includes 432 EME CW and 10 GHz CW and SSB. Bill was responsible for the Mode-S transponder on OSCAR 13. His formal education includes a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas. Past professional employment includes Western Electric, Bell Laboratories, Wilcox Electric, The National Bureau of Standards, Storage Technology Corporation, and Boulder County. Bill is a life member of the ARRL. He retired in 2003
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David was originally licensed in 1976 and was active in amateur radio for several years. After a lapse, he returned to amateur radio in 2005. He has been active in both voice and digital HF through UHF. Most recently, he has been working on the Winlink 2000 project and the Colorado D-Star Association. He has been a member and the EC of Arapahoe County District 22. David also holds leadership positions in several Metro area clubs: he is President of the Denver Radio League, Vice President of Aurora Repeater Association and Vice President of Rocky Mountain Ham Radio. He works for Cunningham Fire Protection District as a Division Chief and has 20 plus years of public safety radio experience. He oversees the Support Services Division which is responsible for the District's facilities, IT, telecom and radio communication systems. He has a B.S. in Business Information Systems. He has been happily married for 17 years and has two daughters, one of which is also a ham: Kim, KCØVKL.
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Brian Mileshosky, N5ZGT lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was licensed at the age of 12. He credits his grandfather, Ed W5RMY (SK), Jeremy Miller KB5OMD and longtime elmer Jay Miller WA5WHN for interesting him in the hobby. As the youngest member of the ARRL Board of Directors, Brian provides an essential perspective that would otherwise be absent from the League's board during its dealings with the many issues facing ham radio today that could impact our future. He serves as Chairman of ARRL's ad-hoc Committee on Scouting, and as a contributing member of ARRL's Administrative and Finance (A&F) committee. Brian enjoys transmitter hunting, chewing the rag, DXing, and assisting with local club activities.
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John Milligan, N6ENU, was first licensed in 1980 and quickly gravitated to the VHF and UHF bands. He made his first meteor scatter contact in 1984 and today co-sponsors the North America High Speed Meteor Scatter (NAHAMS) Contest. He enjoys grid expeditions from remote mountain tops in the western states using his homebrew tower trailer. John is the Director of Engineering of his family-owned embedded systems engineering firm. John uses his degree in Physics to volunteer teach Electricity and Magnetism to elementary school students hoping to “spark” interest in the next generation of scientists.
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Dennis Motchenbacher, K7BV, Executive Vice President of Vertex Standard's Amateur Radio Sales Division First licensed in 1962 at age 13 as WV6WTD, Motschenbacher -- a Minnesota native -- has operated under various US and foreign call signs over the years. Well known as a DXer and top-tier contester, he's operated from 35 different countries and competed at World Radiosport Team Championship 2000 in Slovenia. Motschenbacher is an ARRL Life and Diamond Club member and belongs to the ARRL Legacy Circle. He's also a past president of the Texas DX Society. Before joining the ARRL Headquarters staff, Motschenbacher served as editor of National Contest Journal (NCJ) for four years. In his former position at ARRL Headquarters, he oversaw the League's publication and advertising sales as well as product marketing and membership recruitment activities. A year ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Motschenbacher was among those HQ staff members who were instrumental in coordinating the procurement and shipping of equipment to aid radio amateurs responding in the field. He also traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, to assist Alabama Section Manager Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, who was overseeing the intake of American Red Cross ham radio volunteers supporting communication at its 250 shelters and kitchens along the devastated US Gulf Coast.
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Cheryl Muhr, NØWBV was orginally licensed in 1993 as a Tech Plus. Since then, she passed her tests and 20 wpm code to make Extra. She enjoys all aspects of Amateur Radio and loves to get on the air. She enjoyes Radio events and has attended the Dayton Hamvention® for 15 of the last 16 years where she can usually be found at the YLRL/Buckeye Belles table. She is currently the YL columnist for WorldRadio Online (formerly WorldRadio Magazine), Editor for YL-Harmonics the Young Ladies' Radio League's (YLRL) Bi-monthly magazine, Publicity Chairwoman for the YLRL and Treasurer for the Colorado-YLs. Previous positions include: Past Historian for the Colorado-YLs, Past President for the YLRL as well as Past District 10 Chairwoman for YLRL and former ARRL Public Information Coordinator. Cheryl loves to both work and be DX and has gone on numerous DXpeditions. Callsigns held include: KH4/NØWBV, Midway Island; J3/NØWBV, Grenada; VP5Q and VP5/NØWBV, Turks and Caicos; as well as T32YL, Christmas Island/Eastern Kiribati and plans on working with a JW call when attending the Scandinavian Young Ladies' Radio Association (SYLRA) meeting in Svalbard later this year. Paper chasing, DXing, DXpeditioning, RTTY, contesting, rag-chewing and attending Ham Radio events are all a part of her radio lifestyle. Attending events is a way of life with events including Hamvention®, the Asia Pacific DX Convention, and the most recent ALARAmeet in Tasmania. Current club memberships include: Young Ladies' Radio League, Colorado-YLs, SYLRLA-DX member, Japanese Ladies' Radio League-DX member, Canadian Ladies' Amateur Radio Association-DX member, Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Association-DX member, Women Radio Operators of New Zealand-DX member, Mile High DX Association and the Buckeye Belles-Associate member.
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Rich, AB0VO, is a consultant specializing in reverse engineering of hardware and software as well as developing math libraries and custom software for embedded and real-time systems. He is a Colorado Professional Engineer and has been a very active member in the IEEE for over 35 years. Rich is a candidate for this region's IEEE Director Elect. He is the developer of the uSmartDigi Digi and D-Gate amateur radio products.
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Nick Powell, NH6ON (and sometimes KC4AAA), worked as the South Pole Satellite Communications Engineer at Raytheon Polar Services from April 2000 to April 2007. During that time he made 8 austral summer trips to South Pole varying in length from 2 weeks to over 3 months. Currently he is a Systems Engineer supporting the National Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (NPOESS), a new weather satellite system
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Rick Roderick, K5UR, Vice President, ARRL Rick Roderick, K5UR, is currently Vice President of the American Radio Relay League. He has held ARRL appointments continuously for over 40 years. He is known world-wide for his operating achievements in amateur radio on the HF and VHF/UHF bands, having held numerous records in the fields of DXing and contesting. He lives on a 50 acre antenna farm outside Little Rock, Arkansas where he practices law. Rick is a frequent speaker at clubs and events, and loves telling stories about what he calls “the greatest hobby in the world – amateur radio!”
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Jeff Ryan, KØRM, Colorado Section Manager Jeff has been Colorado's Section Manager since October, 2001. A Life Member of the ARRL, he was an Asst. SM (1996-2001), Emergency Coordinator for Pikes Peak ARES (1994-1996) and an Asst. EC prior to that. He has been member and director of the Pikes Peak Radio Amateur Assn. and training officer for El Paso County RACES. Jeff is also currently Vice Chair of the Colorado Council of Amateur Radio Clubs and a member of the Frequency Coordination Committee. He sits on the board of directors of HAMCON Colorado, is a director and member of the technical committee of the Pikes Peak FM Association, a member of the Boulder Amateur Radio Club and Rocky Mountain Ham Radio. Jeff is active on HF-- likes rag-chewing on 10, 12 and 17 meters and RTTY on 20. Also active on 2 meters FM & SSB and 70cm FM. He has fixed and portable ATV capability on 70cm and 23cm, fixed HF Digital modes, and fixed and portable packet capability on 2M. He has been instructing Pikes Peak region Skywarn participants in safety and net operations for over a decade and also developed an NTS Traffic course that has been copied by many organizations including the ARRL for inclusion in their EMComm course. A Vietnam era veteran, Jeff served in the U.S. Air Force as a Telecommunications Systems Controller (Tech Control) and has been in the Telecom industry for over 20 years. He currently is employed as a project manager at Level 3 Communications. Jeff is also a private pilot and owner of a Cessna 182. He resides in the community of Westminster in the northwest Denver suburbs. |
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Tim Samaras spends May and June in a van outfitted with GPS, radios, scanners, monitors, a wireless Internet connection, and satellite tracking instruments. His harrowing task: to spot tornadoes, try to put himself in their path, and then deploy newly designed probes that measure meteorological conditions in the vortex of the beasts. Then he promptly gets out of the way. "The tools I come up with have to take nearly impossible measurements." His car jammed with GPS gear, radios, scanners, a wireless Internet connection, and satellite tracking devices, Samaras constantly checks the forecast, data, and sky. "I only have one shot at being at the right spot," he said. "The worst is being five minutes late. One traffic jam or detour and you can miss the whole show. That's why we try to anticipate the action and arrive while there's still nothing but blue sky. The storms develop right over our heads, and we follow them as they form."
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Brian Sanders, NASA Space Grant Consortium Brian Sanders worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX before returned to Colorado in 2005 as the Research Coordinator at the Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He works with engineering students to guide them through the development and flight of their projects as an advisor. COSGC enables undergraduate and graduate students to gain hands-on experiences to build, test and fly balloon payloads to small earth orbiting satellites. He recently received his Ham license and they are building a student team of radio operators to support their student programs. Four freshmen to seniors in engineering will present their projects and show how they are incorporating radio communication in to these projects.
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Jay Wilson is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) and is Executive Director of the Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association (DERA) an international association of groups and individuals active in all phases of disaster preparedness, emergency management, response and recovery. More at Web site: http://www.disasters.org . He is also the Executive Vice President for the Center for Preparedness and Training, a
Denver, Colorado institution which provides emergency preparedness training and exercises to government, business and industry. More at Web site: http://www.cpti.us .
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Bob was first licensed in 1977 and enjoys a wide variety of amateur radio activities, HF through UHF. He is usually active in VHF contests; often operating from some mountaintop or roving around Colorado. Bob has written numerous magazine articles for QST and CQ VHF and is the author of two books on electronic test instruments. More recently, his writing activities have centered on the VHF column for QRP Quarterly , the FM column for CQ VHF and his own ham radio weblog ( http://www.k0nr.com/blog ). Bob has a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and has worked in a variety of engineering and management positions for the Hewlett-Packard Company and Agilent Technologies. Bob serves on the Section Cabinet as the Technical Coordinator, responsible for recruiting and maintaining a staff of Technical Specialists who are available to assist the Colorado Amateur Radio community with technical issues such as antenna and radio construction, RFI, repeaters, test and measurement, equipment set-up, portable operations and many others. Many of Bob's crew are also available for presentations at club meetings and swapfests. See the Colorado Technical Specialists web site at: http://www.k0nr.com/contacts.html for more information.
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Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR, President FLEX Radios Gerald Youngblood is the founder and CEO of FlexRadio Systems. FlexRadio is a leader in Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology for the Amateur Radio market. In 2003, FlexRadio introduced the first Open Source SDR transceivers for the amateur radio use, the SDR-1000. In 2007, the company introduced its second generation FLEX-5000 SDR transceivers and began expansion into the commercial and government markets. Gerald's career spans 35 years in the technology industry, where he founded or helped to found eight companies related to computer hardware, software, and peripherals. In 1994, he led SunRiver Corporation (later Boundless Corp.) to become a publicly traded company with ~$140 million in 1996 sales. After leaving Boundless in 1996, he began assisting early stage startups through the early organizational and funding stages. In this direct effort and as a founding parter of SeedStage.com, he assisted more than a dozen companies in achieving first round venture funding in the late 1990s. During the period of involvement with SeedStage, Gerald became interested again in Ham Radio after a 25 year lull. He began experimenting with PC based SDR technology as a hobby, which serendipitously became FlexRadio Systems in 2003 with the introduction of the SDR-1000.
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