Greetings.  I’m Tony Baker AA3HD, and I’m relatively new to the amateur radio world, just getting my Technician’s license in August of 2019.  Getting an amateur radio license was something I had been wanting to do for a long time but hadn’t gotten around to it for one main reason…my employer of over 35 years did not allow it.  One security restriction in working for the Central Intelligence Agency is that you cannot have an amateur radio license.  (Perhaps this standard prohibition has been dropped or relaxed today.)

From a very young age, I remember always being interested in two-way radios.  I think it was around the 7^th grade that a friend of our family – “uncle” Bill – bought me a Knight 2-channel walkie-talkie kit.  Uncle Bill helped me put the two kits together, teaching me how to solder, and me learning what the different parts, like resistors, looked like, and the importance of ensuring polarity was correct, etc.  I remember having so much fun with my friends with those crystal-controlled radios after I got them together and the satisfaction of building them.

At age 20 I went to work for the CIA.  It’s been nine years since I retired.  Because of my employment restrictions, I did what I could do and got into citizens’ band radio.  Probably a lot of us hams were into or dabbled in CB radio at one time.  As a matter of fact, about two years ago I got out one of my old CB’s – an E.F. Johnson 40-channel SSB unit – and hooked it up in my truck, and, it worked!!!  But it wasn’t like the good old days of the mid- to late 1970s when every CB channel was very active, and you could talk skip in a heartbeat.  It seemed all the channels were silent.  My old CB call sign was KHK-7098.  Children and wives, (I’ve been divorced twice), forced me to change my priorities, and I eventually was unable to devote any time at all to my CB radio hobby.

Fast forward to last summer.  (As background, I went to elementary school in Deer Isle, Maine, and have been going there for summers my entire life.  Some of my relatives still live on Little Deer Isle, and my family still has a seasonal house on Little Deer Isle as well.)  For whatever reason, this past summer I started reminiscing about how great the skip on CB was back in the day from Little Deer Isle, but how silent all the channels were now.  I wondered to myself; why not get your amateur radio license now?  After some research, I discovered you no longer needed to learn Morse code to pass the test.  At that point, I decided to get my Technician’s ticket.  With some more research, I found out about a two-day licensing class in Natick, MA, and after completing the course, passed the Tech test.  Two weeks later I took and passed the General test, and two weeks after that, on September 7^th in Boxboro at the HamXposition, I passed the Extra test.  That said, I was probably the only Extra who hadn’t even made a transmission, not to mention that I didn’t have a radio either!!

Boxboro was an exciting time for me.  It was here that I got exposed to some real hams, and some real radios, both new and old making and receiving transmissions.  It also was in Boxboro that I first became exposed to the Nashua Area Radio Society, soaking up all the displays, taking the HAM Bootcamp course, and learning that NARS was ARRL’s choice for the best ham radio club for 2019.  It also was at Boxboro that I decided to go to a NARS membership meeting and join if I liked what I saw.  I realized that by living in Wells, Maine I wouldn’t exactly be close, but I couldn’t find any ham clubs in Maine that were nearly as diverse, active, or successful as NARS.  Between Boxboro and attending my first NARS meeting in October, I bought two radios, the first being a Xiegu G90 HF, and the other an Anytone 868 dual-band DMR ht.  I had also applied for a vanity call sign.

At that first NARS meeting, I was hoping to meet some Elmers, as I had still not made an amateur radio transmission and was hoping I could get some help getting on the air.  It was at this meeting that I was introduced to NE1B – Bill Barber.  He agreed to help me with my DMR radio and get me on the air.  That Friday – October 4^th – I went to Bill’s house.  Bill is a well-seasoned ham with quite a radio shack and impressive awards to prove it.  It was also the day I received my vanity call sign – AA3HD.  I never made a call with my originally assigned call sign of KC1LUN.  Bill helped me get my DMR radio up and programmed.  At about 2:30 pm that day I made my first transmission.  It was with Bill as I was driving away from his house.  Not very far, but what a thrill.  After literally decades of wanting to be a ham, I finally made it!

In Boxboro I also saw the instructor that helped me get my Tech license – K5TEC, Bob Phinney.  When I told him I had just passed my Extra exam, he encouraged me to become a Volunteer Examiner.  When AB1QB, Anita Kemmerer, made an appeal for VE’s at that first NARS meeting I attended in October, I decided to try to get my VE certification.  In mid-November, I became a VE, and have, as my schedule permits, helped out at NARS VE sessions.  How rewarding it is to see new hams and those getting upgrades to fulfill their dreams.  Besides joining NARS, I also am an ARRL Life Member.

At the NARS holiday party, I got a Baofeng ht in the gift swap.  I also have a Zumspot hotspot, and a Mirage VHF/UHF amplifier, all that I need to get up and running, and I still have to get my HF rig hooked up as well.  Antenna limitations imposed by XYL have made my beginning ham journey challenging to say the least, besides the fact that in terms of amateur radio she says, “I couldn’t imagine something that I would be less interested in.”  Right now I have my portable DMR radio working in both my truck and at home.  My base antenna is a portable dual-band J-pole type (DBJ-2) that I purchased at Fall 2019 NEARFest.  (A review of this antenna is in the March 2007 issue of QST.)  In the mobile, I’m using a Diamond NR770HNMO antenna.  I have plenty to figure out and explore, and I am finding amateur radio just as exciting as I always imagined it would be.

Other interests of mine include cars and motorcycles, but that will have to wait for another time.

73,

Tony, AA3HD

I recently returned to amateur radio after an absence of 50+ years. My interest in amateur radio began around age 8 or 9 as a result of encouragement by my father who had been a ham earlier in his life but had been inactive for some time. He brought home a military surplus receiver covering the ham bands and gave it to me to “play” with. He later obtained a set of WWII Army 78 rpm code practice records and helped me build a crude code practice set using a junk box transformer, a door buzzer, and a straight key fashioned from a metal strip cut from a coffee can. First licensed as a Novice in 1957 and upgraded to General a year later. General reinstated May 2017 and original call sign K8EZB reissued as a vanity call sign; Amateur Extra as of December 2017. Current amateur radio interests include software-defined radio technology and vintage HF SSB equipment, mainly Collins and E.F. Johnson.

First QSO as a Novice utilized a homebrew one-tube xtal oscillator built on a piece of Masonite and a borrowed WWII German (Siemens) military receiver. The transmitter power supply was constructed with parts salvaged from discarded broadcast receivers picked from the neighborhood trash. My only xtal was in the 80m Novice band; antenna was a 15m dipole because that’s what I had! Worked a station in Michigan from my Cleveland, OH QTH – DX as far as I was concerned, and QRP (by necessity) long before it became trendy. Moved on to a Heathkit DX-35, Johnson VFO, and a National HRO receiver which was ancient even then. The final station before life intervened was a Collins 75A-1 and a Johnson Ranger.

While in high school, I became interested in an aviation career, but soon found my uncorrected vision wouldn’t cut it with the military or airlines. For this and other reasons, I chose a career in technology (with this choice strongly influenced by my amateur radio experience), went on to complete a Ph.D. in computer engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and began flying as an avocation while in graduate school. While working on the Ph.D., I was invited by my faculty advisor to join a new company he was starting. Up to that point, I had assumed I would follow my graduate school colleagues to Bell Labs – seemed like everyone in my department was going to Bell Labs – to pursue a career in industrial R&D. However, a taste of the entrepreneurial life changed my direction in a major way. Finishing my degree, I had an offer in one hand to join a computer architecture group at Bell Labs, and an offer in the other hand to join a small Cleveland company doing innovative work in point-of-transaction systems as VP Engineering. I chose the entrepreneurial route and never looked back. Along the way, I took time off to do an MBA at Harvard. This led to a progression of senior-level jobs in marketing and general management in technology companies, including President/CEO of the E. F. Johnson Company of Waseca, MN.

EFJ, a well-known manufacturer of amateur radio and CB gear until the early seventies, left these markets well before I joined the Company. We were focused mainly on land mobile radio and cellular during my tenure there. In addition to developing and marketing the LTR family of land mobile products, we did cell site radios and subscriber equipment for AT&T AMPS (first cellular service in the U.S.) and air and ground radios for the Airfone in-flight phone service under contract to Airfone, as well as continuing the legacy components business (connectors, tube sockets, variable capacitors, etc) which was the basis on which EFJ was started in 1923. Edgar Johnson (founder) was still living but was retired when I was at EFJ and we had some spirited conversations. While no longer active on a day-to-day basis, he continued in an informal role of an elder statesman. After multiple reincarnations in more recent years, EFJ continues today as part of JVCKenwood and no longer has a presence in Waseca, MN.

The most recent 25 years of my career have been as a founding partner (now partner emeritus) in a venture capital firm investing primarily in startup companies in Silicon Valley and New England. I worked from an office on Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA (the heart of Silicon Valley) for much of the nineties, and later moved to the metro Boston area to establish an East Coast office for the firm. Over my time with the firm, we invested in several hundred early-stage companies in the areas of technology (telecommunications and computing), healthcare, and consumer products and services.

Active general aviation pilot since 1966; FAA Commercial Pilot certificate with Airplane, Helicopter, Glider and Instrument ratings, Douglas DC-3/C-47 type rating. Currently flying an Enstrom 480B helicopter. The 480B is a derivative of the TH-28 design which Enstrom developed in the early 1990s in response to an Army RFP for a new training helicopter. After losing this competition to Bell Helicopter,  Enstrom civilianized the TH-28 to create the 480B while retaining much of the military required robustness of the TH-28 design. The 480B seats five and is powered by a 420 HP Rolls Royce turbine engine. There are now several hundred 480s in service around the world, including as training aircraft with several foreign militaries. Dean Kamen, a well known local entrepreneur, owns two 480s, and at one time owned the  Enstrom Helicopter Corporation, as did note attorney F. Lee Bailey.

Shown below is the aircraft in which I did a DC-3/C-47 type rating, and it has a remarkable history.  Flying this legendary aircraft was quite a thrill. After several recent changes in ownership, this aircraft is now based in Europe, is still flying, but is no longer painted in the military colors shown here.  (A type rating is an aircraft type-specific FAA  credential required to pilot an aircraft with a gross weight above 12,500 lbs. Obtaining this rating requires a pilot to complete a rigorous oral exam and flight test covering all phases of operation, administered by an FAA representative. My flight test included an unanticipated ILS approach to  minimums in an unforecasted Spring snow squall – talk about pressure!)

Recently back on the air with an IC-7300 and IC-7610 (the SDR segment of my interests) and have discovered FT8, PSK31, and RTTY; with a newly erected multiband long wire I am having great success with these modes, working more DX in a few hours OTA than in my entire previous amateur radio experience.

Primary TX/RX: IC-7610/IC-7300/A1200S/04AT
Other TX/RX: FT-1000D/FT-1000MP/32S-3/30L-1/Pacemaker/Thunderbolt/Valiant II+SSB Adapter/Invader 200/75A-4/75S-3B
Antenna: MyAntennas EFHW-8010-HP long wire at 15 ft in horizontal “L” configuration
Software: DX Lab Suite, HDSDR, WSJT-X, JTAlert, PSK Reporter, WSPR
Other Equipment: TelePost LP-700, Heil PR-40, assorted vintage, and modern test gear
Memberships: ARRL, Nashua Area Radio Society (NH), Order of the Johnson Viking

Rick, K8EZB