Home Page          About KD5OM          QRP Radios          Local Radio Clubs          Tower Project          Tripmate Mods          JMKarlo Photography          DX @ KD5OM

QSL Via:
Jerry Karlovich, KD5OM
2221 Teakwood Lane
Plano, Texas 75075
U.S.A.
or Log Book of The World

I have been an Amateur "HAM" Radio operator since the summer of 1975. However, I built my first crystal radio kit as a 9 year old little kid back fourteen years earlier. From then on radio has always fascinated me. When I was eleven I remember having a dream of building a radio where I could communicate to other people all around the world. That foreshadowing was years before I learned anything about Amateur Radio. Well that is a dream that has come true. In the almost thirty years of Hamming. I have built many radios that allow me to talk all around the world to other Hams who also might have had that same dream as a little kid. In high school I remember inventing the full wave bridge rectifier! I was employed at a radio station at that time. I remember running in to share my invention with our chief engineer after a day at school. He reached into his desk drawer and tossed me this gizmo and he said that I was too late. That little gizmo was my brainchild and was already installed in most TV and radio power supplies. Rats!

I am now more than fifty years old and that dream continues today. I have built many kit radios and several from scratch. I hold an Amateur Extra Class (20 words per minute) radio license. Morse Code is my favorite method of talking to other Hams. Hams call sending Morse Code "CW". CW signals are ten times more efficient in getting through the air waves than voice signals. CW type radios are easier to build than the digital mode radios that make a similar claim. If I were stranded on a deserted island and I could have only one kind of radio to depend on getting rescued, it would definitely be a CW type radio. Hamming and CW with low power "QRP" radios is very popular with Hams that enjoy camping. I really love my Elecraft KX-1 QRP rig!

I also like the other kind of CW, Country & Western. I do live in Texas!

Here on my web pages I share details of several easy to build CW Amateur Radios. Some has said that Amateur Radio has become a rich mans hobby. Many store bought radios do cost over a thousand dollars. However, you can build a CW Amateur radio station for under one hundred dollars. Click on the link that says, "QRP Kits".

Other types of operations at KD5OM have been performing telephone patches for Christian missionaries in Central and South America. In those days (about 20 years ago) I enjoyed my Yaesu FT-101 station with FL-2100B amplifier, Yaesu Telephone Patch and multi element beam on my tower. I had a good strong clean signal on 15 meters for phone patches. New for 2006 is a tower.  I have a new U.S. Tower MA-40 with tilt over base and a Force-12 C3SS tri-band beam. Click  to read the Tower Chronicles. I finally received my DXCC in 2008. I'm presently at 110 mix confirmed.

I am also active on the 2 meter amateur radio band and assist in Collin County public service events and during periods of severe storm spotting. You can find my mobile radio station on the APRS as KD5OM-2. I can be found lurking on 147.180/107.2pl or 145.350/100.0pl here in Collin County, Texas.<

Morse Code DX Radio QRP Radio Kits Amateur Radio Transceiver Low Power Radio CW Transceiver Ham Radio Antenna