Hello, I’m Andrew, otherwise known as N2AL, previously N4AWL! I call Loudon, Tennessee my home and though I may travel the country and world, East Tennessee is still by far the prettiest sight to see! I hold an Amateur Extra class license issued by the F.C.C. in 2012, originally as KK4IFN, and I help support ham radio and new licensees and hopefuls, as a Volunteer Examiner (VE). Promoting the knowledge and culture of amateur radio is a prominent staple in my life, and if I can further your knowledgebase and enthusiasm in amateur radio please let me know!

I have spent over a decade in the public safety field, which opened the door to amateur radio for me. I have saw first-hand how the public safety radio infrastructure can fail, and what an asset amateur radio can be to maintain communications and assist citizens during a crisis and disaster scenario. 

I enjoy the many modes of amateur radio. For example, High Frequency (HF) operations. I use voice and data to transmit signals around the world, to other operators. I have contacted ham radio operators all around the world, including some I know personally that live close by. Last year in 2015, I achieved the goal of contacting every continent in the world, which I am proud of. It was not an easy task.

Another common use for amateur radio that I enjoy is repeater operations. This type of operation takes a transmitter & receiver, called a repeater, at a high elevation, such as the top of a mountain. The modes used are Frequency Modulation (FM), on Very High Frequencies (VHF) and Ultra High Frequencies (UHF). Operators who are in the range of this repeater can contact one another, without the use of a complicated setup, an example being HF stations. Amateur radio operators are typically in a close region with the repeater that they are using, such as being in the same city and county. They are for more local operation, and not designed to transmit and receive from vast distances.

A lot of modern technology can be traced back to its roots, amateur radio! Look at text messaging for example. Text messaging began with amateur radio operators sending data (text) back and forth to one another. Ham radio operators are always working on developing something new, designing and building their own creations, also called “home brewing”, and sometimes, they are the basis of real world application. Hence, text messaging for example.

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