Buzz Miklos
2043 Hawkcrest Drive E
St Johns, FL 32259
Welcome to WA4GPM
I was first licensed as WA4ACH in Jacksonville, Florida in 1960. My Elmer got me on the air with a National NC 173 receiver and a homebrew, crystal controlled 6L6 oscillator/transmitter. I only had one crystal, 7170 Kc! After several months of CW, I passed the Conditional Class test and started operating on 6-meters with a homebrew 2E26 and a 4-element beam on a 20-foot mast. I was amazed at how many stations I was able to work with just those 15 watts of AM. That was the beginning of my interest in weak-signal VHF.
After college and while in the Navy, I began experimenting with 6 and 2-meter meteor scatter. EME soon caught my interest and after visiting K1WHS in Maine, I was hooked. Dave helped me with my first 4CX250B amplifier and not long after I was making contacts with my 160-element collinear. In those days, everything was CW, narrow filters and 2-minute sequences. All the signal processing was done between your ears!
This was my first 144 MHz EME antenna, a Cushcraft 80 element collinear. My first contact was with Barry, WA2BIT.
My hobby led me to a career in Electrical Engineering and my first job was with Eimac. It was definitely a dream-job and the learning experience was fantastic. Jack Kendall, Bill Sain, Bob Sutherland and Ray Fuller were my mentors guiding me through all the principles of tube and amplifier design. While working at L3 Electron Devices in Williamsport, I was on the team that won a Technical Emmy for the development of the Constant Efficiency Amplifier, a large klystron used for UHF TV broadcasting.
I’m now retired but still have my fingers in amplifiers, antennas and weak-signal DX. You are encouraged to browse the site and see what I have been up to since I was first licensed 60 years ago.
73s
Buzz
