David Kicinski KD2HJZ
I am David Kicinski. KD2HJZ, from Earlville, New York, which is in the central part of the state. I want to thank everyone involved for awarding me your scholarship. I am a home school graduate, being home educated my entire school years. I have just started my Freshman year at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, accepted in their Honors Program and majoring in Biology. My thoughts for the future are to become a research biologist and possibly continuing with graduate school for a specific area of study. I became interested in Amateur Radio at 11 years old. My Dad and a few siblings are operators and they invited me to go to ARRL Field Day so I could operate on the “Get On The Air” Station. After that weekend, I was certain I wanted to become a ham. That October, I passed my Technician exam and obtained my license. In March of the next year, I also passed my General exam and was thrilled to have the upgrade so I could operate on a wider range of bands. During the past five years, I have contacted people all over the world, including Antarctica, which was the highlight of my being a ham. I have also participated in several special events, including the 13 Colonies, which I have done every year since becoming a ham. Overall, the hobby has been a very fun and useful part of my life and I will never regret getting my license, especially at such a young age. Another major part of my life is my health. Being born with four major heart defects, I needed open heart surgery when I was four years old. During that surgery, the doctors also put in a pacemaker. The surgery was very successful and improved my health to close to equal others without a heart issue. Since then, I have had annual checkups with the doctors who informed me of my heart’s steady improvement. Now, my heart can function without the help of the pacemaker and the pacemaker will soon be taken out with a simple surgery. The congenital heart defect that would otherwise have crippled me by my late teenage years has been corrected and I lead pretty much a typical and active life. Since 2009, my family and I have raised seven Labrador Retriever puppies for Freedom Guide Dogs (FGD), an organization devoted to raising guide dogs for the seeing impaired and veterans. I was the primary raiser for the most recent dog who went for his formal training last year. He was a yellow lab whom we named Hokey Pokey. We also have raised Wendi from puppyhood, a “breeder” for FGD who has given birth to a total of 39 other prospective guide dogs!
Tucker Dunham KD2JPM
My name is Tucker Dunham, KD2JPM, from Washington, NJ. Thank you everyone involved for your kind consideration and generous award of the 10-10 Scholarship. I appreciate the time and energy that was invested reviewing everyone's applications. I am grateful having been chosen to be a recipient. I am confident I will make the sponsors proud through my work in college. I am a 2019 graduate of the electronics program at Warren County Technical School in New Jersey and I was accepted to Rochester Institute of Technology where I will study microelectronics, fulfilling my goal to pursue an Electronics Technology career and hobby. I was originally licensed in October 2015, and then upgraded to General Class in June 2018. I am also an Associate Certified Electronics Technician. I am a member of the WC2FD and W3OK radio clubs and I enjoy participating in multiple events with each club. I am also a published author in the Radio Club of America 2019 Spring Proceedings detailing my patent pending invention, a solar powered amateur radio digipeater for emergency communication situations. As a Boy Scout, I have earned the Radio Merit Badge and I am proud to have achieved the Eagle Scout Award. I received the 2018 Radio Club of America Young Achiever Award and the 2018 ARRL Youth Leadership Award. Thanks, again for the 10-10 Scholarship.
Jonathan Doorn KG5CUK
My name is Jonathan Doorn, KG5CUK, a recent graduate of the Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This fall, I will be attending Purdue University to pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering, and then a career as an Electrical Engineer. My whole life, I have been interested in electronic gadgets, including radios. In elementary school, I remember putting together an AM/FM radio kit, and then a low power transmitter kit. My interest in this helped me find the world of Amateur Radio. In middle school, I decided to study for the licensing exam, and I went on to pass both the Technician and General tests in the same session. Since then, I have found joy in every aspect of the hobby. I enjoy contesting and DXing, having made QSOs with operators in all 50 states as well as over 70 countries. I also enjoy the service aspects of ham radio, using my license to provide communications support for mountain trail runs in locations where cell phones cannot reach. I am a very outdoors-oriented person, and I have been able to integrate my hobby of ham radio with my recreational activities. Living in the Rocky Mountain region of the US, I am surrounded by peaks surpassing 10,000ft, so I became familiar with Summits on the Air (SOTA) and started hiking up mountains with my ham radio. I usually made a few QSOs on voice whenever I summited, but I quickly found that most SOTA activity was on CW, which prompted me to learn morse code. I would not feel comfortable operating Field Day with it yet, but I can hammer out a crude contact from the top of a mountain with someone very patient on the other end. In addition to the communication aspects of ham radio, I have also exposed myself to the DIY fields. I have built most of my own antennas from 2 meter ground planes to 20 meter dipoles, and even an HF tunable vertical out of a tape measure. I have made various digital interfaces and an AX.25 modem on a breadboard to get started in Winlink and APRS. I chose Electrical Engineering as my academic and career path due to my joy for tinkering with electronics, which was fostered by my involvement in the amateur radio community. I am proud to be a part of this great community, and I will continue my participation in it at Purdue, where I will be a member of their radio club, W9YB. Thank you so much for awarding me one of the 10-10 Scholarships.
Jissell Jose KM6GKN
My name is Jissell Jose, KM6GKN, from San Jose, CA and I wanted to thank you for your support in helping me continue my education and supporting young amateur radio hobbyists. I greatly appreciate the scholarship and it will definitely be very helpful for me going forward. I am going into my senior year at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California and I am working towards a degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation I would like to go into the RF/communications field. I am spending my summer as a pre-sales engineering intern with Motorola Solutions and so far I am really enjoying it. My ham radio experience has definitely helped me on the job. I was first introduced to Ham Radio during my first year at Cal Poly. I got my Technician license in 2016 and upgraded to an Extra license in 2018. I have been an officer in the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club (CPARC) for the past two years and I will be serving as the President of the club for the 2019-2020 school year. I hope to expose and teach more college students about the hobby and grow the membership of our club. I also serve as the test session manager and emergency response lead for the club. One of my favorite activities to do as a ham is to volunteer on communications teams at local events as both a radio operator and net control. I am a Laurel VE and I organize and host a yearly ham cram where we are able to teach the material for the technician exam and license about 50 people in an entire day. I have participated in some HF contests as well with the set up we have in the CPARC ham shack. I have also helped with some of the social events the club puts on including transmitter hunts, BBQ’s and club showcases at Cal Poly. Through the hobby I have met a lot of new friends as well as gained more confidence in myself. Thank you again for all of your support.
