Last updated July 29, 1996
His interest in radio began when he was eight years old. He listened for hours to short-wave broadcasts while living with his family in the midst of the oil fields of Iran. At age ten when his father built a Heath Kit Hi-Fi system. He also bought Steve a Heath Kit crystal radio kit and his life-time interest in electronics began. As a teen he built his own short wave radio, wired the neighborhood with a kids phone system, experimented with self-electrocution and CB radio.
He continued through college and pick up a commercial radio license and a BS in electrical engineering.
In 1974 he came to Alaska and received a post-graduate degree in Geophysics.
Finally in 1982 he got his first Ham license. And within two years he got earned an Amateur Extra class license, the highest of the five types of Amateur licenses. Since then Steve has logged 6211 contacts with people in all 50 states, and 277 different countries (268 confirmed) and has an Extra wife...... Extra class wife.
Steve is an honorary life member in the Arctic Amateur Radio Club. A board member, manages the repeater network.
Amateur Radio. You've may have heard of it. You may know that Amateur Radio Operators are called "Hams" and nobody knows why.
Every minute of every day hams all over the world communicate with each other. It's possible to talk with astronauts, businessmen in Tokyo, legislators, even a King (JY1). All without leaving home!
Ham radio is a global fraternity of people with common and yet widely varying interests, able to exchange ideas and learn more about each other with every on-the-air contact. Because if this Amateur Radio has the ability to enhance international relations as does no other hobby.
There are five types of licenses from Novice and No-code technician to Amateur Extra Class. Ages range for 5 to 95. The exams for the licenses are given by volunteer examiners and issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These cover various technical electronics fundamentals, regulations and Morse code areas.
A Repeater is a well situated automatic retransmission station used to extend the range of other stations. In simple terms it consists of a receiver on one frequency (channel). Signals received are re-transmitted on second frequency usually from a mountain top location. There are many technical issues which need to be addressed to make this work. I won't go into them here.
These repeaters use VHF and UHF radio frequencies which means they provide reliable line-of-sight communications.
Our main repeater is located on Ester Dome. About ten mile west of Fairbanks and covers an area which extends east-west from Birch Lake to Clear AFB and north-south from Yukon River to the Alaska Range.
In total there are 12 repeaters in this network, ten are maintained by our club. We are currently expanding the system to allow telephone interconnection down the Alaska Highway and installing a new repeater in Northway for coverage to the Canadian boarder.
Lately we have had a special fund raising and to-date we have raised about $2400 from 56 of our members and two clubs.
Last updated July 29, 1996