About Us.

Both of our families emigrated from Poland to Australia in the 1950's.

Therese's parents Mirek and Danuta lived in the western suburbs of Sydney for over 35 years before moving to Bribie Island in 1991.

Mirek is a Bookbinder who works for a prominent Brisbane printing firm and Danuta is a housewife who is active in several local charitable groups.

Therese has two older brothers Rick, the eldest, a talented wood machinist who also lives in Brisbane. And Stan a printer by trade, who is now employed as fire and safety professional.

My parents Edward and Jozefa live in the Penrith area, 60 kilometres west of Sydney. Dad worked as a fettler and then as a crane driver for the State Rail Authority of New South Wales for 31 years, and Mum was a tailor. Both are retired now and are enjoying the quiet life.

After spending our lives growing up in Sydney, Therese and I decided move to Queensland shortly after being married.

Our decision to move was made much easier due to the fact that home prices in Sydney had sky rocketed during 1988 and 1989, and that the atmosphere was so much more relaxed in Queensland. We settled in Logan City, a satellite city south of Brisbane, and have not looked back since.

Therese was employed as a pharmacy sales assistant both in Sydney and locally in Logan until the birth of our first child, Aimee-Lee in 1994. Jon soon followed in 1996 and Grant was born in 1998, we call them Search, Bash and Destroy. Therese has chosen to remain at home with the children until they reach school age, and I support her in that decision.

Therese enjoys reading, particularly Daniel Steel novels, doing word puzzles, showing our dog Blade and going for rides on my bike.

After leaving school, I was apprenticed as an Industrial Blacksmith with the State Rail Authority, and later after moving to Brisbane as a Blacksmith with Kings Spring Works on the Gold Coast.

I started a certificate courses in Computer Aided Drafting at TAFE in 1991. In 1995 I found employment as a CAD draftsman with Hales and Lunn Pty Ltd, a cold room construction company in Brisbane. My duties include drawing and documenting large projects, including cold storage warehouses, meat-works, blast and plate freezers, as well as commercial cold rooms and freezers in butcher shops and corner stores etc.

My hobbies include Amateur Radio and riding motorcycles. I was introduced to Amateur Radio after meeting a local ham that insisted I was splattering him while using and old AM CB. He invited me to come over so that we might "sort it out"... He was a tad surprised when he saw that I was only 13 years old.

He took pity on me and showed me his "CB radios", well my jaw just dropped when I saw all the "Cool" gear he had. I knew then that this hobby was for me.

So after a lot of messing around getting a trade, getting married, buying a house and starting a family I finally got my NLAOCP in January 1996, and held the callsign of VK4HBC for 12 months. Because this was the lowest class of licence it only allowed me to use 2m and 70cm but it was a start. Within a couple of months I had sat for my 5wpm Morse and was finally on HF.

Apart from rag chewing I really enjoy chasing DX on 10 and 15m...why? Because it�s there of course :-) I enjoy contesting but never really have much success, but I suppose it�s the trying that matters.

My station consists of a lot of homebrew equipment including power supplies, dummy load & tuner, a home made antenna rotator with solenoid locking pin and other equipment including antennas & test gear. Oh yeah, and some commercial stuff too, a Kenwood for HF up to 6m and a Yaesu FT90 for 2m and 70cm.

The best thing I ever did was to hike up to Mt Kosciusko and work Europe using a Kenwood 120S on battery power and a wire antenna. It was hard work carrying all that gear but worth it.

The funniest thing that ever happened to me on the air was also at Mt Kosciusko. We had stopped for a rest so I broke out the radio while the others broke out the coffee. I made contact with a fellow in Japan and promptly fell backwards into a frozen stream. This in itself wasn't as funny as the signal report I got. 5 by 8 and breaking up... it soon dawned on me that the breaking up was from my teeth chattering from the cold :-)

I heard a VK9 during that hike; he was 5 x 30 and very popular indeed. I couldn't get a word in though. Pity, it would have been a great contact.

In the coming years I want to upgrade my licence and get full call status. This will give me access to 20m and 6m. I really would like to give 6m a try because if you can work the world there, you know you've made it.

When I'm not on the radio, you can normally find me chasing the kids around the back yard or seeing the sites around South East Queensland, I also like riding my Kawasaki along some of the more challenging roads of Brisbane.

Here are some before and after shots of a Honda 750/4 K2 I restored and this is a photo of my current bike, a Kawasaki ZZR1100. There are more photos of motorcycles here along with some other information including links.

Thanks for stopping by, don't forget to sign my guest book before you leave.


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