zhaun paddock ai7bm
From zero to 60 MPH in 5.3 seconds! That would describe Zhaun Paddock’s trajectory into amateur radio since he got his Technician license November 4, 2019, and the General February 12, 2020. He has plunged right into antenna-building, serving as net control for our Coffee Net, and making his first DX contacts, and installing his own antennas.
Zhaun grew up with CB radio. One of his earliest memories is riding in his Dad’s truck and listening to him talk on the CB. His dad let him try it, too. Zhaun’s lifelong curiosity about how things work was also fueled in part by his mom, who would bring home old radios, stereos, or TVs from the dump. She would let him take them apart and try to put them back together. When he was through with his discard treasures, she took them back to the dump. By the time he got to high school, Zhaun had his own CB. Through auto technology, he became well acquainted with such basics as magnetic field, Ohm’s law, and ignition systems. Still, he knew there was more he wanted to learn. Then, as life moved along, his CB radio went on the shelf, although the girl he married also had a CB. (Her handle was Desert Fox and his was Hound Dog. The fox and hound!) Marriage, family, job – things were going well. He saw a car he wanted, a Toyota Tacoma, but it had a lift. He could not imagine why he would need a lift, but he bought it anyway. Then one day a co-worker said: “Hey – wanna go get stuck?” At first Zhaun was not sure he wanted to get involved with four-wheeling, but that first ride was tremendous fun, and he was glad he had a lift. Another bonus: in the four-wheeler club he became reacquainted with a high school classmate, Tom Mandera KE7VUX. The four-wheelers were using CB radio, and Zhaun had his. But then on a ride, he was hearing only part of the radio conversations, the CB part. Where was the rest? Everyone kept saying, two-meter ham radio. But what was two-meter? He Googled it and got nothing. Richard Hiltz KJ7RDH lent Zhaun a club handheld so he could hear everything that was being said. That made him realize he needed his own two-meter radio. He could see that ham radio would be useful when hunting, getting firewood, fishing, off-roading, and – of course – for emergency use. He tried to order his own two-meter radio but found he could not without a call sign. He immediately set about getting his license. As Zhaun tried out his new Baofeng handheld and later his Kenwood mobile radio, he would put out calls, and it seemed that a kindly older ham was always there to help him. Zhaun became friends with Francis Guerin N7FFV / SK, and they often talked. One day Fran said, “I’m going to give you my base station and antenna.” “But” Zhaun protested, “What will you have?” Fran had been giving away all his equipment for some time, and now his handheld was enough. When Fran died, Zhaun knew that he wanted to encourage other learners the way Fran had encouraged him. (Editor: Zhaun can already explain technical details in a way that makes them easy to understand.) Already experimenting, he used electric fence wire, a cutting board, and RG 6 coax to build a dual-band fan dipole. He tuned the wires to 20 meters and 40 meters and joined them to one feed point. Recently he moved his mast closer to his shack, so that the multi-band dipole he is building could be mounted on it and use the same feed point. In addition to helping newbies, building antennas, and experimenting, Zhaun likes rag-chewing. His goals are to learn CW and to earn the Extra ticket. He wants the additional bandwidth, and true to his ever-curious nature, he wants to understand the advanced theory. (After this was written, Zhaun earned his Extra June 24, 2020.) June 2020 |
Zhaun's Kenwood mobile
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Zhaun's dad's truck followed by his grandfather's truck. They managed their lumber business with CB radio.
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Zhaun's fan dipole
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Tanner, Jennifer, Matthew Paddock
