Welcome to the WB2HTO website

  I've been a ham radio operator since 1972, when my "Elmer," Roy (WA2SLO), nursed me through the Novice exam and the Morse Code test of five words per minute. Whew! Two years later my buddy Mike (WA2DLN) and I went down to Varick Street in lower Manhattan (near where the Twin Towers once stood) and passed our General Class exams. That was just about one of the best days of my life; what a feeling of accomplishment. In 1978 (the week after I passed the test for my broadcast First Class ticket which began my dozen years in broadcasting) I went back to Varick Street and passed the Advanced Class exam.  I was VERY active for the next few years but then, as the schoolyard poem goes "first came love, then came marriage, then the baby carriage."  In 2007, after being QRX for a number of years, life settled down just enough to get back into the hobby. I found that while ham radio changed in many ways (I am having a ball with many digital modes) the basic idea hasn't; meeting people who share a passion for RF communication.

I really enjoy chasing DX, and am pretty proud of logging so many entities with my smallish station. (The latest VU4A in December 2024.) Here is a page of how I've done with Club Log's Most Wanted List DX List.

Over the years I have experimented with a number of dipoles and verticals for the HF bands. I currently operate with these two - a ten meter dipole (in green) and a home-brew hybrid dipole (for 80-10) and vertical for 160m, which has been very successful (WAS & over 100 entities) on the Gentlemen's band. Read the whole Norse Saga of its design and construction HERE.