Jeff received his Technician Class license in March of 1977 at age 15. His original call sign was WB3GUR and he operated from his parent’s home in Swarthmore, PA. To get the Technician class license in 1977 you had to take both the Novice and General theory elements as well as demonstrate the ability to send and receive code at a rate of 5 WPM. (He did all three elements in one sitting under the watchful eye of FCC examiner, Joe Welch, in the Philadelphia FCC office.) In June of 1977, a few days before his sixteenth birthday, he took another trip to Philadelphia and upgraded to the General Class license which required sending and receiving code at 13 WPM. Jeff upgraded to an Advanced class license in 1988 and In 2016, to the Extra Class license. This required passing the Extra Class theory element only as the legacy requirement of sending and receiving code at a rate of 20 WPM had been removed by this time; nonetheless, Jeff still plans to “make up for that” by obtaining an ARRL code proficiency certificate at this rate, or higher, as well as striving to be more “CW active” on the bands!
Due to multiple fields of interest in his formative years and not really knowing what he wanted to do when he grew up, Jeff pursued several fields of study. As a result, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in Meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University, as well as a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Villanova University and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Drexel University. While at Penn State main campus, Jeff was a member of the Penn State ARC and he used the club station, K3CR, to have skeds with a ham friend at home in Swarthmore as well as check into traffic nets.
Professionally, Jeff retired in July 2024 after a 40-year career at Lockheed Martin and predecessor companies (General Electric Aerospace and Martin Marietta). Jeff was a Systems Engineer involved with multiple development and system / enterprise integration programs for the US Government. Present Interests / memberships: HF/VHF/UHF, The 146.985 Group, RF Propagation, Satellite Communications, ARRL, Marple Newtown Amateur Radio Club, CCAR, Music (Choral Singing with Wayne Oratorio Society and Guitar playing), Meteorology, Skywarn (spotter ID MJP-055), Astronomy, Civil War history, photography, horses and hunt seat (English) riding and showing.
Download Jeff’s Nerd Notes in PDF
W3GMS REPEATER in Parkesburg, PA 
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