A 15 year old from Houston, Texas, has been selected as the 2009 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year. This, based on his dedication to public service as well as working to bring kids, teens and adults into the hobby. Amateur Radio Newsline's Mark Abramovich, NT3V, happens to chair the committee that made the decision and has the story of Andrew Koenig, KE5GDB:

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NT3V: "Andrew, you are the 2009 Young Ham of the Year."

KE5GDB: "You, you, you, you're serious?"

NT3V: "I'm very serious."

KE5GDB: "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 at the Boy Scouts of America Florida Seabase 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 Newsline.

Before telling him he had been selected as the Young Ham of the Year, I 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 chief Elmer and award nominator - Nick Lance, 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.

He is the son of Joe and Lauri Koenig of Houston. Joe is 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 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, KD5PLA, was a success - thanks to Andrew.

He also helped facilitate a terrestrial contact between Astronaut Chris Hadfield KC5RNJ/VA3OOG and students at two Canadian schools using an 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 Yagi.

Here is an edited portion of his QSO with Astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT aboard the space station:

KE5GDB: "Kilo Echo 5 Golf Delta Bravo."

NA1SS (KE5AIT): "Kilo Echo 5, this is NA1SS, go."

KE5GDB: "NA1SS, KE5GDB, I'm Echo Lima 29. I'm actually about three miles away from the Johnson Space Center. And, it's pretty cool to talk to you."

NA1SS (KE5AIT): "Wow, we know where the Johnson Space Center is. Yeah, Sandy and I work, live right nearby and then he's visited there often. He's waving right now. And, we hear the weather in Houston is pretty good, over."

KE5GDB: "It's about 60 degrees out right now and I'm outside in my back yard with two handheld radios and I'm having a good time."

Andrew also has participated in training astronauts at the Johnson Space Center on ARISS contacts with schools, conducting simulated QSOs with them playing the role of the school students.

Andrew also has been active with public service events through the Clear Lake Amateur Radio Club in suburban Houston where he is immediate past vice president.

Among his achievements, 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 out as far as I wanted to," Andrew recalled. "A couple months before, I had ordered my first mobile rig the FT-7800.

"And, actually a couple weeks before I decided to put it altogether 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. The magazine dispatched CQ photographer Larry Mulvehill WB2ZPI to Houston and Andrew's bicycle mobile became the calendar photo for September 2008.

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 a member of the Seabrook Citizen's Emergency Response Team. Andrew really is 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 Elmer 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."

We here at Amateur Radio Newsline agree and we're proud to have selected Andrew as our 2009 Young Ham of the Year.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Mark Abramowicz, NT3V, in Philadelphia.

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Andrew Koenig, KE5GDB, will receive his award at the 2009 Huntsville Hamfest slated for the weekend of August 15th and 16th at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. We hope to see many of you there.
(ARNewslineT)

Source :ftp://ftp.arnewsline.org/quincy/News-A/news.txt