About Me This one is hard to do. It is hard to profile yourself. I will try to limit this page to amateur radio related information. Being a curious kid, I was interested in how things worked. My first real encounter with electronics was with a single tube gizmo that allowed a person to speak into a microphone and be heard on a local broadcast radio. I played with this thing and had a lot of fun with it pretending I was a disk jockey. It was about this time that my Elmer W4HI, Robert L. Oswald came along and had a profound influence on my direction in life. This gentleman was an elder in our local church and approached us kids to introduce us to the world of amateur radio. His proposal was to give us a radio transmitter if we could pass a test for a novice license to operate on the amateur frequencies. The idea that we could receive an official license from the Federal Communications Commission to talk on the radio was very impressive thought. We would have to provide our own receiver. This was a time when a company known as Heath Kit was beginning to provide kits for amateurs to build their own equipment.  The receiver kit was priced at approximately $30.00. I don't remember the exact price. We practiced the Morris code over the summer and then took our first FCC exam. I was licensed as KN4IUV on April 16, 1956. This license was only good for one year. The idea was that this license would provide a period of time for an upgrade to a higher class of license. As time passed I upgraded to the technician, general, and extra class license. Over the years I have been licensed as KN4IUV, K4IUV, W5LIV, and TF2WFX. Following a short trip to college I enlisted in the United States Air Force. I eventually was transferred to Mississippi where I attended radio and radar repair school. It was there that I acquired the call W5LIV. I operated from a one-bedroom apartment with a Heath Kit SB102 and a dipole antenna. Uncle Sam had promised if I joined the USAF I would have a chance to see the world. Upon completion of my training I got my first chance to see the world. Little would I know it would be from the top down. My first assignment was to a remote radar site on the Island of  Iceland. While in Iceland I was licensed as TF2WFX. I was stationed at three of the 4 remote radar sites. I was responsible for the maintenance of air-to-ground radio equipment. In Iceland I used a Collins transceiver, Viking Thunderbolt, and a multi-band dipole for an antenna. One of the more fun things to do was to run phone patches back to the states for the other guys on the remote site. Iceland was a very interesting place. One of my most memorable experiences was witnessing the eruption of a volcano. While flying from the village of Hofn south to Keflavik we passed the Vatnajokull glacier. The volcano was in that area. I don't remember the name of the volcano, but it was an exciting display of fire and ice. After a year in Iceland I was re-assigned back to Biloxi, Mississippi where I would remain for a short time as an instructor in closed circuit television. Much to my surprise, I was once again assigned to the Headquarters Command of the USAF in Washington, D.C. Following a short training period I was finally assigned to McClellan Air Force Base at Sacremento, California.. This was probably the most exciting time of my air force carrier. My duties there were top secret. However I did manage to get to see some parts of the world, mainly in the pacific. While there I joined the Air Force Mars Program. During those years a lot of the equipment that hams used was home built. Being a member of the MARS program afforded me opportunities to acquire surplus equipment and parts for lots of ham construction projects. I still have some of the parts today. In the spring of 1964 I was discharged from the USAF and returned to Knoxville, Tennessee where I have lived to date. Upon returning to Knoxville I took a job with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL. There I pursued a carrier in electronics. I was assigned to the Instrumentation and Controls Division. My carrier spanned 35 years from 1964 to 1999. My radio amateur activities had to be put on hold for about 20 of those years due to family responsibilities. I was active up until approximately 1971. Around July of 1991 I decided to once again become active in amateur radio. During the years between 1964 and 1971 I had become interested in a facet of amateur radio known as Dxing. For those of you not familiar with the term, it refers to communicating with other amateurs at long distances around the world. The American Radio Relay, ARRL is the official representative of amateurs in the U.S. The ARRL supports an achievement program known as the DX Century Club, DXCC. The DXCC offers recognition for different levels of effort. Up until 1971 I had barely achieved enough credit to obtain a certificate for communicating with 100 countries (entities) around the world. However, this was enough to keep me interested in amateur radio until I became active in 1991. Dxing has become my passion in amateur radio. In the amateur radio community a term has been coined called DX IS. You can ask a 100 different Dxers what that means and probably get 100 different answers. My Dxing is done from East Tennessee in a suburb of Knoxville now known as The Town of Farragut. If you look at my QSL cards you will notice the town is given as Concord. Years ago the only post office in this area was the Concord Post Office. I have maintained that information on my QSLs since the 1960s. The town of Farragut was formed in this area about 12 to 14 years ago. I am an official residence of the Town of Farragut. My mailing address is 11519 Foxford Drive, Concord, TN 37922, and Farragut is located in west Knox County just west of Knoxville. After becoming active again in 1991 I knew I wanted to take up Dxing. The two amateurs responsible for my becoming active again were K4IBP (SK), and AK4Z. I decided the challenge for me would be to work (another term for communicating with) as many different countries as possible using voice or telegraphy. I looked at that as sort of a life- time challenge. One of the technological advances in amateur radio was the creation of what was called a packet network. This network was used for amateurs to communicate with each other over a wide area. The main purpose was to provide users a means of reporting information on where and when other amateurs were operating. It also provided a forum for Dxers to discuss DX, current event, DXpeditions, and many other issues related to amateur radio and Dxing. I was the sysop of a RF packet node for several years. A thing called the internet came along, and I now operate the W4TO node via the internet and what is known as the Mega-cluster.  I considered putting up a web page for several years. As you can see, I am finally getting to do that. In the last ten years I have built my station and antennas, and chased DX. I am currently a member of the East Tennessee DX Association, ETDXA. Dxing has afforded me opportunities to  enjoy the friendship and fellowship of many other Dxers . This has been an important part of Dxing for me. I am looking forward to new challenges and pursuing my passion, DX. I am currently working on a project to remotely control a radio. My expectation is to place this radio at a remote site where I can install a beverage antenna farm for working DX on 160 and 80 meters. I am looking forward to maybe Dxing from other countries. 73...DX...Don...W4TO