N9HUA Home Page
Biographical Information
My name is Tim Vanden
Plas.
I was born December 23, 1961 and raised in the third largest city of Wisconsin – Green Bay.
I come from a family make-up of 5 brothers and 1 sister.
I credit my father Harry (KPK5111) with my interest in electronics and radio as he was an avid Citizens Band operator (back in the 50’s and 60’s) prior to it being deregulated. After 2 years of “School thru the mail” he opened a Television/Radio repair shop. (Yes, real radios glow in the dark – at lease back then)
As a young lad along with my best friend John, built and operated our first AM radio station lovingly named “WJTV” (our initials), a High power station (500 mw) with a whopping range of about half a block. This 3 tube kit was the coolest thing and one of my fondest memories.
Several years later I started down the road to my radio fascination with a Collins 32S-2 transmitter and 75S-3B receiver kindly handed down from my older brother Paul. A simple long wire out my bedroom window to the back peak of the garage and I was listening to the world. Soon life would take me in a different direction with the advent of the “Home Computer”. Now I’m not talking the “Vic-20” but my first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80 (see pic below). This was a Z80 processor running at a whopping 3.25 MHz (close your mouth). This thing came decked out with 1k of memory and not much else. I have owned over 100 different computers since from a teletype with a modem to an IBM main frame settling with my current Dell XPS and my Mac G4.
I am Married 21 years now with 3 children.
Been a ham since October 1988 when I took my Novice, Tech & 5 wpm code test at the local club ham fest. My first radio after being licensed was a Kenwood TH-21AT 2 meter hand held. I purchased it in non working condition and as with most Amateur Radio Operators… I took it apart and poked and prodded it until it had enough, gave up and started working.
Here is where I give credit to the one person that saw to it I sampled HF radio:
KA9BXG – Bob Duescher
Take a bow Bob, this Ham not only gave me a radio to
play with (A Tempo-One with the digital display) but he let me use it for the
first year of my Amateur life. It
is because of him that I still play with radios and even more so love HF.
The family years took the better part of my hobby
time. Radios, Computers and
electronics took a back seat to Baby Bottles, Scrapes and broken hearts. Jump ahead to 2002 and all of a sudden I
started to have time for me again.
Yep, back to the radios in full force. I can be found most days (Band
permitting) on 10 at 28.122 combining my hobbies Computers and Radios using psk
or on 28.335 USB.
Please feel free to contact me any time by radio or
the other means below.
Contact Information
E-mail address
timvandenplas@att.net , tvandenplas@vanssharpening.com , tvplas@gmail.com or tim.vandenplas@snc.edu
