[NLRS] Introduction - Thomas WN1C

[Thomas Murphy]

Hello NLRS!

First, a thanks to Janice and Bruce for getting me set up with the club 
resources!

I'm Thomas, an amateur out of Madison, WI EN53GA in the midst of 
expanding my operating capabilities and RF knowledge VHF+. In part for 
POTA awards (https://parksontheair.com/pota-awards/) for 6m and N1CC 
(operating on 10 unique bands at each of 10 parks or contacting 10 parks 
each with 10 unique bands) and because smaller/easier antennas are 
simpler for field work than HF at times. It's also fun to add bands to 
the SOTA statistics. Plus putting my electrical engineering knowledge to 
use in ways the day job doesn't really require is fun, too.

My current project is contemplating how to put the wideband FM 
transceiver of the popularly-hacked UV-K5 series of HTs to use on other 
bands, particularly 33 and 23 cm for potential low-cost operation up 
there (minus the uphill battle that is SHF surface-mount design). The 
latest post on my blog about this contemplates the approach to this 
(https://trm-radio.blogspot.com/2024/05/a-multi-pronged-approach-to-bk4819-ht.html) 
and I'm thinking about test plans/techniques for the transmit side of 
the mods. I'm also using the Q5 Signals documentation 
(http://q5signal.com/image/catalog/5BVUXr2.pdf) for some inspiration on 
the receive side.

While I'm outside the NLRS ARRL circle, I hope to improve on my ARRL VHF 
January performance later this year as portable analog. My January 
operation was in at least a foot of fresh snow at Blue Mound State Park 
qualifying SOTA and POTA activations along with reaching two unique 
grids across the lower four bands with FM and SSB. The solo trip to view 
the eclipse and play POTA/WWFF does lend me toward portable over rover 
operation.

Looking forward to working club members on the air in the future. 
Currently not expecting to attend Aurora or Central States this year.

I've got a Dish TV dish (no longer with LNBs) in storage and an 
assortment of cables/parts to put to use. Maybe this year!

- Thomas / WN1C