Bob- K8LJ

Bob was first licensed in April 1962 as a novice,WN9CAJ in Waukegan, IL, a far northern suburb of Chicago and on the western shore of Lake Michigan. He upgraded three months later to General Class and became WA9CAJ. Following High School, he attended Michigan Technological University in the U.P. of Michigan, receiving a BSEE Degree in 1968 in Electrical Engineering and accepted a position with Bell Laboratories at their Columbus, OH Branch Location and enrolled in their Graduate Study Program at Ohio State University. At that time, O.S.U. required a Thesis to qualify for a Masters Degree so he had to somehow find a willing advisor and come up with a topic. Bob was excited to discover that Dr. John Kraus, W8JK  from MI had become a faculty member at O.S.U. and the designer and operational manager of the new O.S.U. Radio Telescope, at that time one of the best in the world. He made contact with Dr. Kraus and proposed a project involving the design, construction and operation of  a small radio telescope capable of detecting a few of the strongest radio sources in the sky, some of which emit no or weak energy in the visible spectrum. Dr. Kraus agreed with enthusiasm to take on the project, which took longer than expected, but was successful. Bob graduated from O.S.U. with an MSEE in December 1970. Bob  married his sweetheart, Diana Kay, on July 1, 1972. They have two grown sons, both with very successful professional careers. He accepted a new  two year new program for young engineers to broaden their experience, with the New England Telephone Company in 1973 and became WA1SUI. What a great location for working DX! In December 1995, he returned to Bell Labs in Columbus, now with the start of a family. In 1976 he applied for and received his current call sign (not vanity). Bob retired from Lucent Bell Laboratories in early 2000. He then taught various Electrical Engineering and Networking Courses at Central Ohio Technical College  collocated on the Newark, Ohio branch of O.S.U. for the following 14 years, before fully retiring. If you haven’t already met Bob on the air, he looks forward to doing so. (Ed. Note) Bob is a past NCS and longtime member. He is a huge asset to the Net. Also Bob was my “Elmer” (K2KA).