You have reached a homepage of Tadd Torborg, licensed by the FCC as KA2DEW in February 1979.  I'm learning how to do this web production stuff as I go along so please forgive me if the style changes as you get deeper into the page. 

My ham radio interests have changed over the time I've been licensed.  Getting married (Nancy/KB2TNR) helped too. Mostly I'm interested in dedicated microprocessor controllers, and vhf/uhf links. I also like weak signal stuff. The bench building hobby came out of needing furniture to fit the hobby and having the tools to bang together something big, efficient, and cheap.

My first interest in Amateur Radio was Satellites.  In 1979 I upgraded to Technician class and traded my Heathkit SB104 for a 6 channel crystal Drake TR22 and an Icom IC202 SSB rig.  I was up and listening to Oscar 8 and waiting for Phase 3A to be launched. When it went into the drink I was disheartened.  In the mean time I worked terrestrial 2m SSB and found out about repeaters. 

In 1981 I was involved in the construction and operation of a repeater in north west NJ. The repeater was called Catfish and was on 145.39Mhz until 1986.

During this period I had a periodic involvement with VHF/UHF contesting.  When I was living in Albany, in 1981 I discovered Mount Greylock.  The RPI radio club (RPI is Renselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy NY (near Albany)) participates in June, August and September VHF/UHF contests from the top of Greylock.  For several years in the 80s I showed up and helped with setup and teardown of towers and antennas.  The contesting organization has a web page called Mount Greylock Expeditionary Force.  Mount Greylock is also the repeater home of the Northern Berkshire Amateur Radio Club which I joined and was a member of for several years.

In 1982 I lived back in New Jersey at my parents' house. I bought and used a TenTec Argosy on CW and while driving to and from Dayton OH with ham passengers. I made it to Dayton every year from 1982 to 1994. My 1982 Datson 310 had 3 antennas including a ball mounted CB whip or Hustler HF antenna and two NMO antennas. My 1986 Chevy Nova had 3 NMO VHF/UHF, and my 1987 Acura Integra had 4 NMO and a ball mount for a CB or Hustler HF antenna.

After moving to Pennsylvania in 1984 I worked on repeaters and repeater controllers.  I built several.  I was mildly into packet radio starting in 1983 or so. In 1985 I moved to New Hampshire and participated in repeater projects for a couple of years, while also playing with packet radio and SSB.  I met K1TR on SSB during this period.  In 1988 I built multi-port packet nodes at K1TR's house in Windham NH and at KA1OXQ's house in central Mass.  In 1989 I got sucked into ham radio politics with NEPRA and shortly after helped found the North East Digital Association.  Repeaters and SSB (mostly) fell by the wayside and I did packet radio almost exclusively until I met my wife Nancy and got married. 

in 1990 I went back to college @Clarkson for 3 semesters and was forced by the then president of K2CC (N2KIQ) to try to upgrade from Technician. They had voted me into an officer position without realising I did not make the minimum requirement of being a General.
It surprised me when I aced the 13wpm code exam and passed Advanced. All that practice doing CW for repeater controller operation!

My first employer after Clarkson (a startup company) bought me a Kenwood TS690AT as a hiring enducement and I used it on the drive from upper NY to Seattle where his company was based. I also used it in two more round trips across the country in 1992 as well as at home in Seattle where I had very big trees.
While in Seattle I became president of the NorthWest Amateur Packet Radio Association.
In Nov 1992 the Seattle employer had closed its doors (we lasted a year) and I was back in Hackensack NJ. For the next year I flew back to the north-west for N.A.P.R.A. meetings every 3 months.

On a blind date set up by another ham (WB8PUF) I met Nancy in 1994 and sold the TS690AT to fund our engagement weekend (priorities???).

In 1996 I moved back in New Hampshire with my kids and wife and do mostly home-based and commuter mobile ham radio on FM and once in a blue moon on 40m SSB.  I was involved with the K1TR packet node but didn't do much politicking. NEDA expired in January 2000 after having become less important due to portable cellular phone sites, and less interesting due to cable modems and the rise of instant messaging and the web.

In August 2002 I moved to Orlando Florida. I was almost entirely on the air except for driving around with a mobile rig on 146.73 and using 446.025 simplex with KB2TNR while at the parks or shopping.

In June 2007 I moved to Raleigh to be closer to RadarFind, a startup company I was an early employee of. We were making packet radio networks to operate inside hospitals. This was wildly successful and we were later purchased by Teletracking.

At the start of 2013 I had found my work at Teletracking was now less packet-radio-ish and more of software and other details I was inspired by WB2DWD to get back on the air. I made several radio purchases in 2013 including a decent HF rig, my first since the TS690 in 1990, a FTdx3000.

In January of 2014 I rediscovered packet radio on Amateur Radio and started a push to get back into the VHF/UHF linking for digital communications.

In 2016 I was hired by another startup. Also doing packet networks indoors.