Speaker

March 26, 2024: Bob Nolte KD7YOX: FT8 from Arizona

PLEASE NOTE: Our monthly general meeting is IN-PERSON, as well as webcast on the internet. See the notes at the top of this page for details.

In this talk Bob Nolte KD7YOX, a new member of the Pasadena Radio Club, tells us about his first year as a serious practitioner of ham radio, mainly using FT8.

Bob had a long and innovative career with Volunteers of America, where he was a pioneer in business computing. It began in 1967 with a service bureau based on the simple equipment of that day, such has IBM System/3. From 1973 he set up and operated nursing homes, including systems for processing accounting and payroll, in an era when these capabilities had to be developed from scrath. By the time he retired in 1991 there were more than 20 of these facilities in several states. Bob then started PC4U, which he ran until 2010.

Throughout his life, Bob dreamed of getting a ham ticket, but that didn't happen until he moved from Minnesota to Southeast Arizona in 2001. Cellular service was almost non-existent, so he obtained his General license, but with the arrival of cellular service, he made no further use of his call sign until March of 2023.

At that time Bob decided to give his computer some exercise by doing ham radio. He soon discovered that, in the remote area where he lived, he was on my own, except for phone help from cousin Bruce Nolte N1BN, a long-time member of Pasadena Radio Club. Bob essentially started from scratch once again, by setting up WSJT-x and running FT8 on the computer and letting it show him how to run the radio. (WSJT-x is a software package that facilitates basic amateur radio communications using very weak signals.) The rest came from a lot of research on the Internet.

Now, one year later, Bob has QSLs from over 100 countries and has received the DX-100 World Award from QRZ.

We hope you enjoy hearing Bob’s impressive story.