Our October meeting is a week early due to Halloween falling on the last Tuesday of the month. Our president, Harold, WBØLFH, has lined-up another interesting program for this meeting. John Lock, KFØM, will present the program for our October meeting.
John was first licensed in 1974 as a Novice, WN5MHY. He upgraded to Technician class, followed shortly by Advanced class in 1976 with the call sign WB5WOQ. He earned his Amateur Extra class license in the early 1980s and changed his call sign to KFØM.
He was initially involved in HF contesting, especially on 10 meters. He got involved in 2 meter SSB in the early ’80s to talk to friends in Arkansas.
The VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC) got him seriously interested and he achieved VUCC number 9, on 144 mHz which then spurred an interest in EME. He achieved WAS on 144 mHz a few years later, and was within the first 100 hams to accomplish that goal. He also achieved WAC on 144 in that same time frame. In the 1990s, looking for a new challenge and learning opportunity, John got involved in repeater maintenance. This lead to the development of the Kan-Okla system of linked repeaters.
Most recently John has been trying to be more active in weak signal VHF-UHF on 50 mHz and 1.2 gHz.