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I always go by M.D. or just MD. Like to run Bicycle Mobile in summer. Run Yaesu 857D on bike. Got Ham license in 1961 while attending the University of Alabama. We celebrated 50 year anniversary of W4UAL 1962 to 2012 on the quad in the shadow of Denny Chimes with an all day "Field Day" with several founding operators and members and alumni of the club. A special QSL card was made for the occasion and will be mailed to all ham operators that made contact on Saturday, October 13, 2012 with any of the operators at the mike or key of the club station, running on portable power and equipment under two tents for the duration of the day.
I operate primarily 80, 40 and 20 meters and have all band Icom IC-7000 all band rig in car and Flex-6300 at home. I also operate CW to keep familiar, but speed is usually below 18 WPM. I do return QSL cards 100% and often send them out even if I don't get a reply back, if the QSO was memorable in some way. I certainly still enjoy RTTY from the old days and love the new JT-65 where 25 watts works the world.
I have enjoyed the higher bands even on my all purpose, Carolina Windom. Have made nice contacts SSB & digital on 20, 15, 17, 12 and 10. Have made good RTTY & PSK31 contacts along with JT-65/JT-9 which is amazing on low power and poor band conditions. (Lately as of 2023, FT-8 and FT-4 are even more amazing.)
All the new radio activity of 2012 made me want to get an upgrade and after quite a number of hours of study and a lot of practice exams taken, I successfully completed the EXTRA Class exam on 2-2-2013, Groundhog Day. I hope that signifies 6 weeks of great band conditions.
Feel free to email me since I can reply sooner than any other way. mdsmith at HiWAAY.net
Best regards,
M.D. Smith
Since 2017, I've written 9 books. Three are non-fiction stories my wife and I have written for Old Huntsville Magazine. Three are romance novels, and the last three are collections of my Flash Short stories (less than 1000 words. Please visit my author pages at https://mdsmithiv.com/.
Got into Drone Flying in early 2015. Have used it many places like our rental house in Navarre, FL on the Bay, and at the park on the island that has the Gulf of Mexioc on the right and inland waterway bay on the left. I have flown Drone in lots of places in 2015. Other photo is my "Lake House" hamroom 2017. 
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Below are two photos of me in January & February 2013 with my mobile at hamfests. One was the "FreezeFest" in Locust Fork, AL and the other was the "BirmingHAMfest" in Birmingham, AL. As you can see from my 2017 Bike Mobile photo, I have lost quite a few pounds in 2017 on a nutritious diet.
As of 2015 I added the FLEX 6300 and dual monitors, I do a LOT of digital work on PSK31, JT-65, JT-9, FT-8, FT-4 and RTTY.
And here's my father's ham shack in 1980. All Hallicrafters with a HT-32B Xmtr, SX-115 Rcvr, HT-33 Linear, Johnson Match box, A Hallicrafter TO Keyer and a Heath Monitor Scope. I had a HT-32B and a SX-115 in the late 60's & 70's and used my own home built 2K linear with a pair of 4-400's in the final. I built it in a HT-32 case to match the Hallicrafter gear and powe supply was remote. It was a cover story on CQ magazine in 1963. I later had an S-Line (+ my linear) and finally went digital around 1990.
Besides mobile on the car below, I also run "Bicycle Mobile" as of July 2013. Photos show my 2-meter HT outfit AND my HF gear with Yaesu FT-857D 100 watt rig and battery. I have a special QSL for those I work from my bicycle - Direct - Repeater or IRLP. Also use a 2-meter flexible J-Pole taped to the fiberglass bike flag you see in yellow shirt photo and it gets out very well. For the HF rig I use either Hustler mobile & coils or "Hamstick" antennas on Green bike. Also have a mag-mount 2M/440 antenna to work all bands from this bike. On 12-2-13, added CW paddles for code work and made my first CW contact on a bicycle.
What you see below are some of the Photos from the first of my Radio days working summers as a FCC First Phone Engineer doing combo work for the WAAY-Radio directional array and DJ shift. I also worked at The student Radio Station WUVA at the University of Virginia for a year. At WAAY, it was midnight to dawn. My air name was DEE SCOTT and the photo is one clipped from the weekly Family Top 40 Survey. I worked summers from 1956 through 1963 when I graduated from U of A. Then our family got into the TV business with WAAY-TV, Channel 31 the ABC affiliate. Nice having both my father and me as hams with all the engineer hams at the stations to help us with mobile installations and radio repair in those days.
In 1983 WAAY Radio went Stereo and opened up our 50,000 watt daytime directional transmitter north of town. The night time transmitter stayed at the studio site seen in the photo and the 5KW stayed as a backup for the 50kw. The clipping shows my father and me making the announcement in the newspaper. It was a boost of sorts to revenue, but the FMs were dominating the Top 40 world, and we sold the station in 1988 and focused on the TV operation which was doing quite well and #1 in the news ratings.
We were always fighting to be #1 in the New Ratings against our main rival, WHNT-19 and this photo was featured of the two GM's of both station in an article in "Business Alabama" Magazine in June of 1996. On left is Linda Spalla of WHNT-19 and me, M.D. Smith IV of WAAY-31-TV.
If you are interested in any more photos, stories or history of the Broadcasting years,See Smith Broadcasting History at http://www.31alumni.com/31histor.htmor the main page just 31alumni.com.
And finally, an assortment of TV photos including partial front of the building, news director's booth, a #1 Graphic sales page from the 70's, and a Engineering slide with photo of our LiveStar Sat truck we got in 1993.
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