Here is the promised bio:
Born London, UK; late 1946; Australian mother, American (USA) father.
School years in Los Angeles, except for two years in England.
Joined US Navy in 1967, retired in 1987. Electronics Technician trained
in Radar but spent entire career in the submarine service. Initial
speciality was inertial navigation (first computer was a Verdan see:
http://www.tendertale.com/tttj/tttj2-5.html and scan down to middle of
page). Next did ocean floor searching. Lastly at a command running the
Transit satellite system (precursor to GPS, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) where I introduced the
command to the DDN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Data_Network
Managed to advance from Seaman Recruit to Lieutenant (Limited Duty
Officer, Electronics).
Along the way married a lovely young Australian lady - Susan. (1976)
My first Internet account was in about 1981 on a computer named trout at
NOSC in San Diego. I still have found memories of using
rtfm.mit.edu to
look up all kinds for useful data: see
http://rtfm.mit.edu/ . You might
be amazed or annoyed the MIT allows this, [see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM ] and has for almost 30 years to my
knowledge.
Along the way did a CS in computer science and a MS in Management.
Migrated to Australia in 1987 (see mother and wife above).
Worked for DEC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation 1987 - 1992.
Then consulting / contracting computer support (mostly for small
businesses) for 15 years. Retired in 2010.
Was in Rotary Club of St. Ives for 14 years resigned in 2008; see:
http://xr.com/t65 (PDF, page 3 upper right). Hosted seven exchange
students in this period; attending the wedding on one in Belgium on 21
July.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RichardAmes and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ariconte (My edit
history on Wikipedia)
Recently decided to take up 'amateur radio' as a hobby. Member of WIA,
ARRL, MWRS, HADARC.....
Cheers, Richard.