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![]() THE AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE Editorial Office 28197 Robin Avenue Santa Clarita California Tel/Fax: (661) 296-7180 E-Mail: NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release (July 30, 2009) Contact: Bill Pasternak (WA6ITF) / Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) 661-296-7180 / Dennis Motschenbacher (K7BV) / Vertex-Standard Corp. 714-827-7600 / Rich Moseson, (W2VU) / CQ Communications, Inc. 516-681-2922 / ANDREW KOENIG, KE5GDB, NAMED RECIPIENT OF THE 2009 AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE(tm) "YOUNG HAM OF THE YEAR" AWARD "Wow! Oh, my God. All my friends here at Seabase are going to be really impressed. Oh, my God!" And, that's how it sounded when we caught up with Andrew Koenig, call letters KE5GDB, by cellphone at the Boy Scouts of America Seabase in Key West, Florida, where he had just arrived with members of Troop 848 from Houston for a week of scuba diving adventures. The Life Scout, who is just shy of his 16th birthday, is working to earn the Eagle rank and was ecstatic to learn he had been chosen for special recognition by the Amateur Radio Newsline. Before telling him he had been selected as the Young Ham of the Year, we asked Andrew how he might feel if he were to receive such an award. He said it would be a nice honor to share with his mentors, including his award nominator Nick Lance, call letters KC5KBO, who has helped several NASA astronauts earn their ham tickets. "Young Ham of the Year would probably go in the book of things that I've done in ham radio that they are really impressed with," Andrew said. "It would just mean a lot to me. "Nick Lance, he hasn't really been pushing me to do anything. A lot of the stuff I discover on my own. But, he's one of the big roles, one of the key aspects in ham radio and it would give him a really good feeling to know that one of his students went on to get youth ham of the year." Andrew holds a General class license and passed the test for his first ticket back in 2005 while a sixth-grader at the Westbrook Intermediate School in Houston where Lance - who is retiring in August from the Johnson Space Center - teaches an amateur radio license class. Andrew is the son of Joe and Lauri Koenig of Houston. Joe holds the call letters KE5JQA and got licensed as a result of Andrew's interest. Andrew also has a younger brother, Kyle. Among the achievements Andrew has accomplished is helping with an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact at the Westbrook Intermediate School. "I actually helped test a lot of the equipment for the contact, since it was a telebridge contact," Andrew recalled. "The station that was actually contacting the ISS was in California, I believe. "And, we were in Clear Lake, Texas. So, for some reason the phone patch wasn't working properly. So, I had to actually go into one of the school phones and test that - I think about 15 minutes worth of testing before the contact started. And, finally right on time, we got it going again and everything was working just fine." The contact with Astronaut Clay Anderson, who holds the ham radio call sign KD5PLA, was a success - thanks to Andrew. Andrew also helped facilitate a terrestrial contact between Astronaut Chris Hadfield (ham radio call letters KC5RNJ and VA3OOG) and students at two Canadian schools using an Internet Repeater Linking Project (IRLP) node he had built and placed in his bedroom closet. Andrew, who enjoys VHF and UHF operations, tried and tried and was finally successful in making his own contact with the space station using his handheld radios and portable directional antenna. He also has participated in training astronauts at the Johnson Space Center on ARISS contacts with schools, conducting simulated contacts with them, playing the role of the school students. Andrew has also been quite active with public service events through the Clear Lake Amateur Radio Club in suburban Houston where he is immediate past vice president. He is also a member of the Seabrook Citizen's Emergency Response Team. Among his other achievements is creating his own bicycle mobile setup: "I had tried putting a handi-talkie on my bike and I wasn't impressed with the results because the rubber duck just didn't get out as far as I wanted to," Andrew recalled. "A couple months before, I had ordered my first mobile rig (radio), the FT-7800. "And, actually a couple weeks before I decided to put it all together on the bike, I had bought a brand new gel cell battery. So, I thought, you know, hey I've got this remote that came free with the radio, I've got the battery, I've got an antenna, I got everything I need to make it happen. So, I just mounted it all on the bike with zip ties and I had 50 watts mobile on a bike for VHF and UHF." That attracted some attention from CQ magazine, which was looking for photo ideas for its 2008 calendar. Photographer Larry Mulvehill (WB2ZPI) visited Houston and Andrew's bicycle mobile became the calendar photo for September 2008. He and his bedroom-closet IRLP node will be featured the cover of the September 2009 issue of CQ magazine. Andrew is going into his sophomore year at Clear Lake High School where he is a member of the school's marching band. He is also into computers and creating websites and he maintains his own website started when he was in middle school. Check out www.thathamkid.com. It offers kid-friendly information about ham radio, along with a jokes page and a lot more about Andrew's activities in amateur radio - including his working satellites. His mentor and nominator for this award, Nick Lance, KC5KBO, summed it up best when he said: "Andrew has truly been an outstanding student of amateur radio.....He is an inspiration both to his fellow students and to hams of all ages." Award Ceremony The 2009 Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) "Young Ham of the Year Award" will be presented to Andrew Koenig, KE5GDB, on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at the Huntsville Hamfest in Huntsville, Alabama. As the 2009 "Young Ham of the Year," Andrew will receive -- courtesy of Vertex-Standard -- an expense-paid trip to the Huntsville Hamfest, along with a gift of Yaesu brand ham radio equipment. CQ magazine will treat him to an expense-paid week at Spacecamp Huntsville, and will present Andrew with a variety of CQ products. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) will provide Andrew with a commemorative plaque at the award ceremony. Once again, the cost of year's plaque has been underwritten by Dave Bell (W6AQ), President of DBA Entertainment Inc., Hollywood California. Heil Sound Ltd. will also be presenting Andrew with a ham radio related gift. The presentation of the award as a regular feature of the Huntsville Hamfest has been made possible through the generosity and kindness of the event's Planning Committee and the good offices of Huntsville Hamfest Association Vice President Charlie Emerson, N4OKL. (See http://www.hamfest.org) This year's award ceremony will be hosted by Don Wilbanks (AE5DW) of Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) along with representatives of corporate underwriters Vertex-Standard and CQ Communications, Inc. Award Program Background The Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) "Young Ham of the Year" award (formerly the Westlink Report Young Ham of the Year Award ) has been presented annually since 1986 to a licensed radio amateur (Ham) who is 18 years of age or younger and who has provided outstanding service to the nation, his/her community or the betterment of the state of the art in communications through the Amateur Radio hobby/service. It maintains a website will full information on the award program and background material located at http://www.arnewsline.org. Award Sponsors The award program is jointly sponsored by the Los Angeles, California-based Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) with corporate support from Vertex-Standard Corporation of Cerritos, California and CQ Magazine of Hicksville, NY. Since 1976, the Southern California-based Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) and its predecessor, the Westlink Radio Network, have been providing radio amateurs around the world with up-to-the-minute news at no cost to them. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) also co-sponsors with the Quarter Century Wireless Association the "Roy Neal, K6DUE, Amateur Radio Mentoring Project" that serves as a clearinghouse to match radio amateurs in need of educational assistance on the hobby with those able to aid them. (See http://www.arnewsline.org) The award's two corporate underwriters are world leaders in their respective areas of Amateur Radio product support. Vertex-Standard Corporation is considered the trailblazer in the design, manufacture and distribution of high quality Vertex-Standard commercial two-way radio, monitoring and air-band communications equipment along with its Standard Horizon marine electronics line and Yaesu brand Amateur Radio equipment. The Yaesu name is known world-wide among ham radio aficionados and is synonymous with premium quality ham radio gear. (See http://www.vertexstandard.com) CQ Magazine and its sister publications, CQ VHF, Popular Communications and WorldRadio Online, are published by CQ Communications, Inc., and are considered the trend-setting publications serving today's modern radio amateur. (See http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com) Past Recipients Past recipients of the "ARNewsline Young Ham of the Year Award" include Shawn Alan Wakefield, WK5P, of Bartlesville, OK (1986); David Rosenman, KA9PMK, of Muncie, IN (1987); Jonathan Binstock, NK3D, of Potomac, MD (1988); Erin McGinnis, KAOWTE, of Topeka, KS (1989); Mary Alestra, KB2IGG, of Staten Island, NY (1990); Richard S. "Sammy" Garrett, AAOCR, of St. Louis, MO (1991); Angela (Angie) Fischer, KBOHXY, also of St. Louis (1992); Kevin Boudreaux, N5XMH, of New Orleans, LA (1993); Allison Daneen Zettwoch, KD4CKP, of Louisville KY (1994); Adam Weyhaupt, N9MEZ, of Alton IL (1995); Toby Metz, KB7UIM, of Boise ID (1996); Brian Mileshosky, N5ZGT, of Albuquerque NM (1997); Richard Paczkowski, Jr., KF4BIA, of Edgewater, FL (1998); Michelle Swann, KE4EZI, of Warner-Robins, GA (1999); Christopher Arthur, KT4XA, of Russelville, AL (2000); Patrick Clark, KC8BFD, of Elkwood, WV (2001); Josh Abramowicz, KB3GWY, of Reading, PA (2002); Jay Thompson, W6JAY, of Santa Ana, CA (2003); Andrea Hartlage, KB4IUM, of Grayson, GA (2004), Rebekah Dorff, WG4Y, of Hoover, AL (2005), Catherine Ferry, NC8F, of Streetville, OH. (2006), Grant Morine, W4GHM, of Wilmington, NC (2007) and Emily Stewart, KC0PTL, of Leavenworth, KS. (2008). Note: Attached photo courtesy of CQ Magazine - Larry Mulvehill, WB2ZPIPhotographer. -30- |
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