Ken Oelke, VE6AFO, stepped up to the plate for his local amateur radio club and ended up making leadership in local and national Canadian amateur radio organizations the major focus of his ham radio activity.  Ken is now the president of the QCWA, the Quarter Century Wireless Association, when not operating both CW and SSB, or fixing one of his broken rigs. VE6AFO is my QSO Today.

Stephen Hicks, N5AC, is vice president of engineering for Flex Radio, is deep in to SDR or software defined radio, likes to chase grid squares in his microwave rover, and observes the growth and trends in our amazing amateur radio hobby.  From Steve’s position on the cutting edge of technology, he has a lot to say in this QSO Today.

Tom Wright, NN2X, grew up in the sixties in the foster care system.  Amateur radio provided a way out of the system and into the US Army and a career in satellite communications.  Tom loves his family, the digital modes, especially the new FT8Call, and helping kids escape poverty by training them for careers in information technology. This QSO is packed with little jewels as NN2X shares his ham radio story.

In addition to his may hobbies and interests, Ray Poularas, VK2GRP, restores vintage military surplus radios back to new condition by carefully tearing down the chassis to the bare metal and rebuilding, sometimes remanufacturing the parts by casting, milling, or 3-D printing.  Ray goes into great detail on his processes and also shares his time management tips that bring him success in all of his pursuits in this QSO Today.

Mike Bryce, WB8VGE, collects and restores the old Heathkit and Drake rigs that we remember from the 60s and 70s, works QRP on his favorite Ten-Tec transceivers, and has enough solar electric power to run everything.  WB8VGE shares the background of all of these things and his current view of the state of ham radio in this QSO Today.

As an eleven year old, watching his dad put pins in a World map while working DX, Bernie McClenny, W3UR, became hooked on ham radio and working his own DX.  Bernie has made working DX, not only his hobby, but his profession as well. Bernie is the publisher of The Daily DX, and author of the monthly QST Magazine column, How’s DX.  We will get into W3UR’s ham radio story and his unusual collaboration with his neighbor this QSO Today.

Kevin Parmenter, KG5Q, caught my attention from an article that he published in QST Magazine, August 2017 about the Flightaware system.  I was intrigued with the article that leverages our technical ability against a services that uses crowd sourced receivers, in private hands, Worldwide,  to track commercial and military aircraft to display their location, speed, and altitude on Flightawares website. KG5Q joins be to discuss his ham radio story and the Flightaware system in this QSO Today.

Frank Brickle, AB2KT, took a professional path to music composition at Princeton. He combined his musical composition skills with his technical knowledge of computer programming and background in amateur radio to develop the first software defined radio (SDR) software used first by the US government and later by private industry.  Frank AB2KT is a noted classical music and opera composer and a pioneer in SDR technology.

Justin Johnson, G0KSC, tells his ham radio story and how it led to the founding of his company,  Innovantenna, and his approach to antenna designs, that maximize signal to noise rather than gain to produce amazing results. If you are re-considering your antenna system, then you will enjoy this QSO Today with G0KSC.

Tony Hutchison, VK5ZAI, who, from his interest in satellite communications, became an important backup communications link in South Australia for the NASA space shuttle missions, the Mir Space Station, and the International space station when crewed by amateur radio operators.  Tony is a pioneer in this area of ham radio and has been recognized by NASA for his contributions. VK5ZAI is Eric’s QSO Today.