Hello,
I am K.C. (yes like the Sunshine Band...) and I live in Kirby, Texas.. .which is essentially San Antonio.
I am an Electrical Engineering student and I have not come CLOSE to deciding my concentration. I plan to get a second major in Physics after my E.E. and go on to Master's and hopefully PhD in Physics. For E.E. I am currently considering RF, Control Systems, Electronic Materials and Devices, and Communications as concentrations.
I work as a Network Analyst at a local utility company and make a decent wage. I am able to afford parts and components, but not multi-GHz O-scopes or other expensive toys.Hence, I want to eventually become a professor! (and actually RESEARCH things...!)
Currently I am wrapped up being a ham radio enthusiast. I have to go home a climb 40 feet up a tree to bolt on an antenna tie-point. Then I have to climb up another! I already got the center one last week...
I just finished an RF-upconverter so that I can tune 50MHz and below on my Nooelec RTL Rafael Micro SDR dongle. Now I can receive from DC to 1.7GHz on my laptop and see the airwaves.
I built a Michigan Mighty Mite, a super-simplified 80m CW (morse code) transmitter a few weeks ago in old fashioned style on a nicely finished plank of wood with 2mm brass rod as the interconnect and whatever nice brass and old mica insulators I could find to pretty it up.
With the SDR and the super-simple transmitter, I plan to begin very gently and scientifically experimenting with radio and electronics in-general, observing how my changes affect the output, and reading for advice and tricks.
I have a very nice electronics and metal fab setup in my garage for building everything from radios to entire residential antenna towers.
I also have a lovely wife, (4) kids, (7) if you count my beloved dogs, and infinity if you count the rest of the animals out family has adopted!
K9SPY is my FCC Amateur Radio callsign. I recently got it on the license plate of our truck, car, and my dual-sport motorcycle.
This year I hope to have a home-built radio setup mounted in ammo cans on my Suzuki DRZ-400 for ARRL Field Day, where I will assume the role of using my "dirt bike" to get to the top of some random local peak to setup a relay point (repeater) to get emergency radio traffic out of a valley and off to whichever direction it is needed. I'll have to fabricate a suitable "luggage rack" along with some electronics to support the power needs on my VERY small bike.
Looking forward to lots of chats and no flames...!
kc
San Antonio, TX