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.