Hello. With the help of my elmer, W5HKJ, whose name was Elmer, I was first licensed in October 1957 as KN5MPM when I was 14. Then I upgraded to K5MPM in 1958 and was active during high school and less so during college at Louisiana State. Unfortunately in 1968 I let K5MPM lapse and it wasn't until the New Orleans World's Fair in 1984 that I got back into the hobby with my current callsign in order to operate the special event station.

Since 1984 I've been active in my main interest which is CW contesting. I've never had a great station or even a mediocre one but get a charge out of CW operating and doing the best that I can with what I've got. I've also had the opportunity to be part of some multi-op teams at some nice stations in the Houston area including N1LN, K5NZ, NX5M, and NR5M, and most recently in the New Orleans area at KN5O on the northshore of Lake Ponchatrain.

Due to antenna restrictions in my neighborhood I'm limited to a couple of dipoles for 40 meters and 20 meters so I do a lot of mobile contesting in state QSO parties including Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Kansas, and Florida. I've written some software (CQ/X) for mobile contesting that fully integrates GPS technology into the contest logging function. You can check it out and download it at my website http://www.no5w.com. If you do, send me a note to let me know your opinion of it. My other major radio-related software project is PileUpNet which has been used the past two years at the Dayton Hamvention at the Kansas City DX Club's CW Pileup Competition as well as at several CTDXCC events in Texas and at a NCCC event in California. Information on PileUpNet is also available on my web site.

In January 2006 I retired after about 26 years as a software engineer for a major electric utility in the middle south region of the US. So now I have more time for my other interests which include photography, computer programming, and travel, as well as CW ragchewing which I also enjoy. Look for me on 40/20 CW as well as in most of the domestic CW contests.

My wife, Keri, and I have two grown children, Logan and Lauren, and two grandchildren, Nino and Juliette. I'm the only ham in the family but Keri supports the hobby by driving me all over the country in the state QSO parties. Logs from some of those operations are shown below as Logs On a Map.

I'm currently the coordinator for the Texas QSO Party held during September. If you think you would enjoy trying to work all 254 counties in Texas in a single weekend give it a try sometime.

73/Chuck/NO5W

Member FOC (1944), CWOps (311), and SKCC (4958).

Logs On A Map