K4BR John R. Mac Donald Waynesboro, GA QCWA # 36746 Chapter 100

I grew up a "Navy kid" so, I have lived in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Japan, Okinawa, Guam, Wake Island, Maine, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. As a consequence, I attended 13 different schools from kindergarten to high school. Tired of moving around, I attended all four years of college at Georgia Southern University where I met my future wife, Debbie, now N4APZ. I have since lived in FL for 20 years and GA for 24 years.

Debbie and I have been married over 40 years and live back-and-forth between our house in Daytona Beach Shores and a 20 acre mini-farm about 20 miles south of Augusta, GA. We have two grown, educated and married daughters, both of whom are enthusiastically and completely uninterested in ham radio. We also have two granddaughters: Aubrey, 15, who is an excellent student and athlete, and Brylie, 7, who is absolutely horrible at CW, but nevertheless, loves to sit on my lap while assuming the role of "assistant Morse code key or SSB microphone operator" while I'm making contacts.

Debbie and I are both veterans of thirty-four years in education, but we are pleased to report that we are both retired and almost fully recovered from our educational endeavors. We tell people that "most days, we don't do anything and we usually don't start that until after lunch."

I was a physics & chemistry teacher for a few years, a principal or some other type of school-based administrator for twenty-seven years, an occasional adjunct college professor and I finished out my educational career in a regional office of the Georgia Department of Education a few years ago.

Amateur Radio at K4BR
I was first licensed in 1977 as WD4COL and "inherited" my callsign, K4BR, from my father, Bill MacDonald (SK 1998). I operate mostly CW, but enjoy an occassional SSB rag chew with my ham buddies or a DX station, too. My HF equipment includes:
. Icom IC-7600 HF transceiver
. Heil microphone
. N3ZN ZN-5 iambic key
. Alpha 87A linear amplifier
. MFJ 1.5 KW Automatic Intellituner.
. Dentron Super Super 3 KW Antenna Tuner
. 110 feet of Rohn 25 tower
. 75/80 meter dipole up 70'. It was built in the 1980's by my father and refurbished by me in 2014.
. 160 meter ZS6BKW inverted-V up 110'. It is 205' long and is fed with 80' of ladder line and 75' of coax. It is oriented for east/west propagation

PLEASE QSL DIRECTLY (no stamps necessary worldwide) or LOTW

I am a member of the:
. A-1 Operators Club
. 10-10 International Association
. Southeastern Repeater Association
. FISTS Club
. ARRL - life member
. Burke Amateur Radio Club (president)
. Amateur Radio Club of Augusta
. Bird Dog VE Team (team leader and ARRL liason) from the "Bird Dog Capital of the World": Waynesboro, GA

Actually, Debbie and I are both life members of the ARRL and we are trying to keep those memberships active for as long as we possibly can. I am president of the Burke Amateur Radio Club, trustee for the K4BR repeater in Waynesboro on 145.23 MHz (-600 KHz) and team leader and ARRL liason for the Bird Dog VE Team. I have a web site at k4br.com, which is always in progress.

Echolink
Try out our Echolink node 73883, a.k.a. K4BR-R, which is our club's repeater in Waynesboro, GA.

VE Testing
Waynesboro, GA, "The Bird Dog Capital of the World," has an ARRL-affiliated VE team called Bird Dog VE Team with the website http://birddogve.com. I am the ARRL liason for the team. We will bring a VE test to cities/towns in many places in Georgia and South Carolina if invited.

Besides Amateur Radio
I enjoy golf, but I stay in shape by playing tennis, which I got into literally by accident (broken arm playing h.s. football). After a successful college tennis career, I played tennis professionally for a few years albeit at a level that was not quite at the pinnacle of the game.

I have enjoyed a number of years as a tennis club owner and teaching pro. I was a school administrator, but I taught a LOT of tennis lessons after school and on the weekends.

June 26, 2015