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Gene Spinelli has been a licensed amateur radio operator for over 30 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.
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". 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. Primarily interested in DXing, with over 344 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,
Collins KWM-2, Collins S-Line (not shown), Collins 30L-1, Drake C-line and a Henry 2K 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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