I became interested in Amateur Radio in 2007 through my granddaughter who wanted to join her dad (my son-in-law) as a Ham. She was only ten and the classes were offered on a school night and lasted too late for her to make her bed time. So my wife and I agreed to take the course and relay the information to her after school the following day. The system worked quite well and she passed the test handily. While taking the classes for the Technician license we became interested and decided to take the test too. We were asked to take the General test when we passed the Technician, then the Extra. Our granddaughter declined the opportunity but my wife and I went ahead. We passed them all! So we went from nothing to Beth AC8ET and Bill AC8AA in one testing session.

Later that month we purchased tri-band hand-held radios, set them up in our cars with external antennas so they could also be used as mobiles and began to learn how to use them.

We've joined several radio clubs:

ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League); DARA (Dayton Amateur Radio Association); WCOARA (West Central Ohio Amateur Radio Association); MOCOARES (Montgomery County Amateur Radio Emergency Services)and participate in some of their nets on local 2-meter repeaters.

We have been working hard to get additional certifications. So far:

Emergency Communications I, II, III

ICS 100, 200, 700, 800

NWS Skywarn Weather Spotter.

We participate in public service events and work when needed at Emergency Operations Centers for our county and Kettering Medical Center.

We have replaced the HT in one car with a Kenwood 710A dual band radio with an AvMap G5 Satellite Navigation System. The system sends an APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) signal through the radio to any similarly equipped radio within range and to repeaters equipped with an Internet Gateway. This allows anyone with a computer to access the Internet and, using a site such as findU to see where we are currently.

We visited several field day sites in 2009. Montgomery County ARES, Bellbrook Amateur Radio Club, Dayton Amateur Radio Association, and West Central Ohio Amateur Radio Association.