Technical Career and InterestsSkills - Technical
Technology: a Significant Theme
Technology has been a fascination of mine from early on. Steam engines as a young child, junked radios and astronomy in grade school, graduating to ham radio and a telescope in high school. Math and science were favorite subjects.
In college, I started out as a physics major, enjoying that subject, but later on, music and religion edged ahead, and I graduated with a major in religion and philosophy and a minor in music. However, I engineered a closed-circuit campus radio station, and experimented with hidden antennas for my ham radio interest. In my last years in college, I worked at two radio stations as engineer and announcer.
Computers
Computers: Don't you love'em?
I first learned about computers on a borrowed TRS 80 computer from Radio Shack, then an NEC PC8801A hybrid CPM/MSDOS machine. These two provided learning about spreadsheets and bookkeeping, word processing and brochures, mail-merge letters, and databases.
The work at the environmental monitoring company provided continued learning about these items, plus programming in interpreted languages such as a proprietary report language and Basic, and a little C.
Ham Radio Experience
K0YDS: Ham Radio
Ham Radio for me has provided learning opportunities for the technical side of radio and electronics. Putting a station together, especially in the early days, required knowledge of antennas, feedlines, switching, transmitters, receivers, and maintaining it all.
Shortwave Listening
I have been a shortwave listener for many years (as well as an amateur radio operator). In fact, I rebuilt an old radio using the "new" (in the 1950s) miniature tubes, and it worked better as a shortwave receiver than as a regular radio! I learned to solder, read schematic diagrams, find parts wherever possible, and troubleshoot!