Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club, Inc.

Jim Talbott  WØYA

218-692-4030

E-mail: rjtalbott2 at crosslake.net (replace the at with the familiar "@" sign.)  This is called "munging" the e-mail address in the posting so that "spam harvesters" can't recognize it as an e-mail address.

Jim got his Novice class, Amateur Radio license, WN9WQE, while he was in high school.  Six months later he became a General Class licensee, W9WQE.  He was born and raised in Elmhurst, IL, where he acquired an early taste for DXing and contesting.

Jim did his undergraduate work at Northwestern University.  He spent the next three years in the U.S. Navy serving as a Junior Division Officer in the Operations Department on board the USS Canberra, CAG-2, a missile cruiser, and as the Anti-Air Warfare Officer on CRUDESFLOT 10 staff (a two star Admiral task group commander).   

When he completed his Naval Service Jim went to the University of Minnesota for his graduate school work in Electrical Engineering.  Upon graduation he joined the Research Division of Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids, IA.  As much as he liked Collins (and their great Amateur equipment) he missed being around lakes (water) and soon found himself at Honeywell Systems and Research Division in Minneapolis. 

Later he joined Norand Corp, a start up company, of ex-Collins people, that developed the first portable data entry devices and scanners that are now widely used in almost all retail establishments for order entry and inventory.  Jim went on as a founder of Management Graphics, Inc., an early entry into computer graphics and computer slide making systems (before the PC and PowerPoint).  Today he is active as President of Rho Tau Medical, Inc., a manufacturer rep company.

His Ham Radio efforts had the usual constraints of growing family and job.  Many years there was little or no activity.  Upon getting somewhat active again in the late 70’s he upgraded to Extra Class and holds the call WØYA.  (In between he held the calls WAØVMC and WØRDS).  He is a life long DX'er and in a spurt of activity in 1983 he even won the ARRL International DX contest for low power, Minnesota Section.  He enjoys contesting.

He and his wife, Karen, tore down their lake cabin on the Whitefish Chain in 2002 and built a year around home.  They moved up here permanently on July 1, 2003 and are tremendously enjoying living in the Brainerd Lakes Area.  They became grandparents in 2004.  Grand parenting is lots of fun also!  Their daughter lives in Chicago and they have a son living in Minneapolis. 

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