Presenters

Jim Wilson, K5ND,  is a retired Boy Scouts of America publishing executive. In his professional role at BSA from 1992 to 2013, he led the Communication Service Division to produce over one thousand projects each year across print, web, and video.

In his Scouting volunteer roles, he served as the National Jamboree on the Air Coordinator from 2010 to 2018 and chaired the BSA Radio Scouting Committee. During that time, the committee introduced the Morse Code Interpreter Strip, the Amateur Radio Operator Rating Strip, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the ARRL, and added the Amateur Radio Direction Finding option to the Radio Merit Badge. They also facilitated the introduction of the ARRL Amateur Radio Service to Scouting Award.

Jim served as president of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association from 2011 to 2019, leading the association’s growth from 9 in 2015 to over 500 at the end of 2019. He also served as the K2BSA Jamboree Chairman at the 2013 and 2017 National Jamborees. He was the Team Leader for the NA1WJ operation at the 2019 World Scout Jamboree.

He served on the World Scouting Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet Team from 2014 to 2019. He worked with a multi-national five-member team to lead the largest Scouting event in the world with 1.5 million Scouting participants at 25,000 locations in 150 countries.

You can find out more and catch up with his amateur radio adventures at www.k5nd.net

John Portune, W6NBC, is a native of Los Angeles, CA.

He was licensed in 1965 and earned Extra in 1972.

He was a ten-year resident of the United Kingdom with the call of MØGCK.

His commercial Licenses include: GROL, and General Radio Telegraph.

Portune holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics, from Oregon State University in 1960.

Career (Retired)
TV broadcast television engineer/instructor, KNBC Channel 4 Los Angeles
Sony Broadcast, San Francisco.

He is a prolific ham magazine author with over 25 articles in QST as well as articles in other publications.

Portune makes frequent radio club Zoom presentations as a service to the hobby. He is a popular live speaker at ham expos.

He is active on HF, VHF, UHF – SSB, FM, digital modes, and ham satellites.

Portune’s other interests include steam railroading, and pipe organs. He is a sushi enthusiast.

He is married to KF6OEB. They have three children, 12 grandchildren, and are still counting.

jportune@aol.com, website: w6nbc.com

 

Denny Johnson, K5DCC, has been a ham radio operator since high school. Over 50 years of ham experience exploring all of the various modes of communications, including using internet technologies via computers and cellphones and the multitude of VOIP communications apps. He has a passion for getting others (especially young people) interested in the hobby and uses tools that all have access to right in their pockets without the need for a license that act as a gateway to amateur radio for FREE.

Johnson loves hearing the interesting stories of hams around the world, young and old, that tell how they got into the amateur radio hobby and what they love most about it.

He has a podcast called “DigiCommCafe – A Ham Radio Buffet” where he shares these stories in an interview format. By the way, the DCC in his callsign comes from DigiCommCafe which is his paradigm for amateur radio which, as he explains it, is a buffet of communications delicacies where you can just pick what you like and leave the rest.