(Background CW start/stop control)

Amateur Radio

    During the 1980's I developed a deep interest in radio and wireless communications.  I spent a lot of my spare time in the radio rooms of various ships with the wireless operators.  Because satellite communications were relatively new at that time, the primary method of communication was still via Morse code using HF (short-wave) radio.  I soon discovered amateur (Ham) radio.  I learned to send and receive Morse code and wrote the exam for my amateur radio license.  I have been licensed ever since.  My first call sign was VE1PMD, and then I became VE1UK.  Since April of 1996, I have held the call sign VE1DX.  Radio amateurs are held together by a voluntary bond, a camaraderie perhaps best described by the Amateur's Code. 

    Click here for more information on Ham Radio . . . including a recording of a conversation with the Commander of the International Space Station via Amateur Radio.  Check out the VE1DXI DX Cluster by telnetting to ve1dxi.no-ip.com:23, running CC Cluster (software by Lee Sawkings, VE7CC.) 

    I have also written some DX related stories written in the style of my friend Hugh Cassidy, WA6AUD (SK.)  Click here to access the archives. 

   In March of 2005 I lost my tower in a heavy wind and ice storm.  However, by 16 April 2005 I had rebuilt.  It was a long 6-7 weeks . . . but I was back on the air.  This tower has a TH-5/MK2 Hy-Gain antenna for 10/15/20 metres.  In September 2006 I put up a second tower and added a Mosley TW-33-XL yagi for 30/17/12 metres.  I use various wire antennas for 40 and 80 metres.  The most recent addition to my antenna farm is a Mosley AM-56 yagi for 6 metres.

    In August of 2003 my son Michael (also a licensed amateur radio operator holding the call VE1DUN ) and I visited Newfoundland for several days.  Although it was mostly vacation, we went to the two most historical sites regarding the early days of radio in North America, Signal Hill and Cape Race.  In late August of 2007 I returned to Newfoundland with Michael's younger brother, Kevin.  Click here for a few pictures of that trip.

My Job

    My career has been varied.  I began my working life as a Chemistry Technician at a local hospital in 1974.  However, for the past 23 years I have been a computer programmer, then a WIN-95/WIN-NT support specialist, and then a UNIX System's Analyst and Data Storage Specialist for an oceanographic research institute in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.  I worked on a large Information/Knowledge Management project from 2002-2004.  I am presently working with the scientific data management and remote spectral radiometry groups at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and its related offices . . . although for about 12 years I went to sea as part of scientific research teams.  One of my most memorable cruises took place onboard the research vessel CSS Baffin in the winter of 1989.

CSS Baffin January-March 1989

Let's build a Boat!

    One weekend in 1998, my wife Heather and I got around to discussing a row boat that we had about twenty years ago.  Click here to see the results, and here to see our pond where it resides.