Joe Lankford, K7JAL

Joe is our former Vice-President and also our local propagation forecast expert. Joe will tell us if that DX is possible, if it will be noisy on the band, and whether we should go outside to look for the Aurora Borealis.

Brief BIO of Joe:

Joe was born in Liberal, Kansas, grew up there, and graduated from Liberal High School in 1963. Joe went to college at Panhandle A&M in Goodwell, Kansas and also at Kansas State College of Pittsburg in Pittsburg, Kansas. The FAA sent Joe to seven years of formal schools at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Joe retired from the FAA in 2001 after 26 years as an electronic technician, NAS specialist, and NAS operations manager. Prior to working for the FAA Joe was a design draftsman and engineering technician for several companies in the midwest.

Joe and Carolyn met in Dodge City, Kansas and got married in 1967. They have two children, Mitch and Tonya, and three granddaughters: Megan, Kara, and Chloe.

Joe moved to Enumclaw, Washington in 1992 when he started work at the Seattle Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). Joe and Carolyn have lived in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Washington.

Joe first got interested in CB radio while living in Denver. After moving to Utah he got disgusted with the "chicken band" and found that one of the guy's he worked with was a ham. And, the rest is history [all of this is history]. Joe has been licensed since 1976 when he got his Novice class license in January of that year. And, six weeks later he had his Advanced Class and he has been Extra Class since 1980. CW is Joe's main mode.

Joe's rigs include TenTec Orion and Yaesu FT-1000 Mark V Field that drive the Yaesu VL-1000 Quadra System. Joe also uses an Icom 910 for VHF/UHF. Joe's antennas include a 3-element SteppIR, a 20 meter Yagi, 40 and 75/80 meter double Bazookas, a 160 meter shorty, a 10 element 2-meter yagi, and a 19-element 70 cm yagi all on a 52 foot motorized crank=up (with motorized tilt-over), free-standing tower with 17 a foot stacking mast.

Joe also operates from his RV. It is equipped with yet another TenTec Orion and Yaesu-1000 Quadra System. Antennas are a Tarheel #100 antenna for HF. Also he has a Yaesu FT-857D for HF, VHF/UHF with a Tarheel #100 antenna for his truck. Joe likes Tarheel antennas.

Joe belongs to many ham clubs including: NWSOAR, MIC & KEY, NWCC #1448 and current VP [2007], WCC #2302 and current President [2007], QCWA #33007, FISTS #11973 (CC #1907), and FISTS Northwest Club K7FFF #4400 (CC #457). Joe's goal is to get his CW speed back up to 30 wpm of good solid copy.

Joe does have other interests. They include RV'ing, fishing, and spending time with the grandkids.

Webmaster: Phil Hystad, K7PEH

Phil is the webmaster for the Northwest Country Cousins. If you have complaints or suggestions, just send him an e-mail. Oh, if you complain about how it works with Microsoft IE, his standard response is to tell you to start using Firefox (it is faster, nicer, and more in tune with the standard way of doing things on the web).

Brief BIO of Phil:

Phil is a baby-boomer, born in 1947 in sunny California where he spent his formative years as a child, teenager, and troublemaker. College at Oregon State University, graduated with BS Physics 1970 and then later he picked up a BS in Computer Science. He spent graduate work in Math but never did pursue the PhD that had always been in his plans (interests: Mathematical Physics).

Phil and Judy got married in 1972 and have two daughters: Rebekah and Amy. Also, they have four grandchildren: three grandsons and one granddaughter.

Phil's entire career spent as a computer programmer from the early days of programming in the mid-1960s to the current world where quantum computers are being designed. In 1978, Phil along with 11 other engineers and programmers split from their current employer and started their own engineering systems and software business serving the needs of the electric utility industry. The company grew from the original 12 to the current employee count of roughly 450 in Redmond, Washington. Phil and his fellow employees helped to keep the lights burning in much of the world.

Phil took an early retirement severance in 2005 and started his own consulting company. Phil works about half-time through the year and the other half spends time in hobbies and traveling with Judy as her assistant in her hobby of bird photography. Besides ham radio, Phil's other hobbies are working through the puzzles of mathematical physics (current interest: General Relativity and Cosmology), fine woodworking (hand cut joinery), and goofing off on his Mac computer with the latest programming toys such as the Scala language or programming his iPhone.

In January 2010, Phil decided to work full-time again with an offer that came looking for him that was just too interesting to pass by. On March 1st, Phil started work with Alstom Power at a new northwest office that will be the first west coast office of this huge 20 billion Euro multi-national. I am employee number 2 of a startup like engineering group that researches and develops software solutions for the economic delivery of renewable energy using SMART Grid technology.

Phil has strong opinions on computers -- he is an Apple Mac fanatic (owns three Mac computers) but does bow to the powerful Oz (Microsoft) at times through his Windows laptop. Phil is particulary fond of Unix or Linux and most of his programming experience in the last 20 years has been on various Unix or Linux systems. For those who do not yet know, Apple Mac OS X is indeed a very good Unix system based on the CMU Mach Kernel and using the BSD file, shell, and command tools.

Roy L. Dickinson, N5SWE

Roy is a full time RVer who spends his winters in exotic places. The photo here shows Roy next to his home at the beach in El Golfo, Sonora, Mexico (Spring 2008). Roy says that the winters in El Golfo are terrific. Obviously, Roy will reach us country cousins from many different locations through out the year.

Roy and his xyl Nancy sold their house in 2002 right after he retired from Union Pacific Railroad. Roy was a locomotive engineer. He and his bride will continue to travel over the country-side until he can no longer drive the 40 foot motor home anymore.

Look up Roy in QRZ and read more about his travels, his station, and activities.