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Gene Spinelli has been a licensed amateur radio operator for over 35 years. My interest in electronics goes back to the teenage years. Joining the US Navy 2 weeks after turning 17, attending Electronics
Technician Class "A" School at Great Lakes, Illinois and went on to service various radar and communications equipment aboard US Navy radar picket ships. In 1965, while at sea, I studied for a Conditional Class
License, but never took the test. My enlistment ended in 1967 and went into the computer service(s) business from where I retired after nearly 40 years, but went back "consulting".
While living in Arlington, Texas, I went to the FCC office in Dallas and sat outside the testing room on the hard wooden bench, waiting to be called by the examiner. Back then the tests were administered by
2 "steely eyed FCC examiners" (as Wayne Greene, W1NSD, described them). They first administered the CW receiving and sending test, then handed you the written test documents. As I sat for the written test among
20 some odd other people one of the examiners yelled out "Spinelli you passed the CW test". A lot different than today's "high touch" testing process. I can also remember waiting for my ticket to arrive in the
mail with my first callsign. Of course,The Little Print Shop would send you sample QSL cards with your new callsign long before the actual ticket arrived!
Past callsigns are: WB5WFD, WD6DLK, and KE6LT, also hold VK2IXC issued several years ago while in Sydney, Australia and New Zealand call sign ZL1NA issued in 2009. Primarily interested in DXing, with over
345 confirmed (and all current DXCC "entities" confirmed), my other interests include repeaters, digital modes and radios that glow in the dark.
The station consists of an Icom 756 Pro III, Icom 765, Icom 7000, Collins KWM-2, Collins S-Line (not shown), Drake C-line and an Alpha 8410 linear amplifier. The antennas
include a Force 12 C-3 and a Cushcraft XM-240 mounted on a US Tower HDX-572, all coax and other cables to the tower are buried in 3 separate conduits that exit the ground along side of the tower base. The
home in Colorado is located near the continental divide at 9165 feet above sea level..
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