Born in South Boston in 1931 I always had a fascination for radio from the time I was able to walk and talk. My folks had an old radio that sat on a table in the living room that we listened to every evening that had an open type back of the cabinet exposing the tubes and their signal grid leads and the tubes had a orange glow and a slight feeling of heat coming off them that attracted me to investigate and poke fingers at. I remember one time putting my finger on a lead to one of the tube grid caps and the station we were listening to blasted in, that was my first contact with radio and I have been at it ever since.

I remember another embarrassing moment in time when I was in High School and had purchased my first what they called a 2 way portable radio that used A and B batteries and also plugged into A/C.

Having no money to purchase new batteries when the battery voltage dropped I decided to charge the batteries by way of 120V A/C, that was my first encounter with DC and AC voltages which resulted in a smoking radio and it was then I decided to learn about electricity and Ohms law and this eventually led to Ham Radio and an electronics career with a commercial radio and TV manufacturer. Being a tinkerer at heart Ham Radio became a natural for me and stepped me into many wiring and building projects through the ensuing years that followed me into the early days of analog circuits.

I have been involved with public service, handling of phone patches in the sixties from the Antartica for our military guys and gals, founded the 3905 Century Club and was one of the first officers for ECARS. I also am a member of the A1 Operator Club.

I served my country during the Korean War as a Marine and I serve now as a MARS Air Force operator with the call sign AFA2JI.

I especially enjoy making wire antennas of all sorts and talking on both phone and CW. I have some digital interests but being as I am from the old school of analog circurity and hand wired radios where you could actually find the exact one part that was defective versus changing out a block of components contained in todays's digital chips which hold a ton of components and circuitry, I am thouroughly satsified with good old radio. Ham Radio has been a good hobby for me as it has given me a chance to meet many people from all walks of life and sometimes be able to meet and help those along the way who are stumbling through their early phase of learning the radio art.

I was first licensed as a Novice class in 1955 and I have held the calls KN1HHN, K1HHN, W4NVF, and my present call W9HG so as to personalize and associate it with my name. I also passed the Extra in 1993 doing a blazing 20 wpm solid copy on the full text a skill I am deeply proud of since it is only a memory of a skill to be cherished now that they have dropped the morse code for an open road to an unearned Extra Class and I stilll don't get it. I am a certified VE heading a group that has been active since 1993, and I thoroughly enjoy watching new faces come into the hobby and become part of our fraternity especially those who earned it.

Ham radio is entering a new and excting era and I look forward to the new digital world that is being created which will renew interest in this old hobby of ours.