{"id":151,"date":"2019-11-07T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/?page_id=151"},"modified":"2020-08-23T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T22:23:39","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Chris, I currently hold the Amateur Radio call sign of NO7E.\u00a0 I’m a visually impaired Extra Class Amateur radio operator originally licensed in New Jersey as N2OEU when the no-code license was introduced. I later upgraded to a Technician plus after passing my code test at 5, then the 13 wpm in the same session. I moved to North Carolina soon after that and forgot about it. I cleaned out my wallet almost a year later and found my CSCE for the code and realized I only had about six weeks left before it expired.\u00a0 I studied a few weeks and passed my General while living in North Carolina and changed my call to W4ADL. \u00a0Since I was living in North Carolina I wanted a “4” call. \u00a0While living in North Carolina I was heavily involved in all aspects of emergency communications with the local ARES\/RACES and especially SKYWARN as a spotter and Net Control operator. \u00a0 A volunteer firefighter as a Training Officer then Assistant Chief for several years.<\/p>\n

I am now living in North Las Vagas Nevada and a member of the Henderson Amateur Radio Club<\/a>.\u00a0 I am active on HF, both voice and digital modes as well as D-Star and a little DMR.\u00a0 I am the administrator for the W7HEN D-Star<\/a> repeater located on 446.975, I am able to assist people with registering for the D-Star network.\u00a0 I just completed the CW Ops<\/a> Level 1 course to learn CW the proper way.\u00a0 When I was first licensed I learned CW the wrong way and it caused a mental block that I could never get past the 15WPM block.\u00a0 I am still overcoming this block but I will conquer this block and head copy correctly.\u00a0 If anyone is interested in learning morse code and doing it the proper way I recommend this course and group highly. Continued…<\/a><\/p>\n

Vision Loss<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

In my late twenties I noticed something happening in my left eye, things started to look warped in the top center of my eye.\u00a0 After going to several doctors around North Carolina before I was able to get a proper diagnosis.\u00a0 I was diagnosed with early-onset Macular Degeneration.\u00a0 I was twenty-eight at the time of this diagnosis, the average person that receives this diagnosis is between the ages of sixty-eight and seventy-two.\u00a0 This made it difficult to do my job as a network engineer, building servers with those small screws started to get more and more difficult as I got older.\u00a0 On top of this diagnosis, I was also told that I had Retinitis Pigmentosa, which explained why I had night vision problems ever since I was a child and they only got worse as I got older.\u00a0 By the time I was in my late thirties started having difficulties with driving especially at night.\u00a0 I was losing my peripheral vision in both eyes and the MD in my left eye had gotten awfully bad, so much so that I couldn’t see anything but warping and light.\u00a0 My eye doctor told me I could still keep driving with special glasses but I disagreed.\u00a0 I turned in my driver’s license (Anyone that knew me knows how majorly difficult this was for me.) at age thirty-eight.\u00a0 I would not be able to live with myself if an animal or child ran out from the side of the street and I did not have the reaction time to stop.\u00a0 <\/em>My vision was really starting to go at this time, I always had issues with night vision but now I am completely blind at night.\u00a0 It was starting to be almost impossible to walk alone at night without hurting myself in one way or another.\u00a0 I found out at six foot four inches fire hydrants seemed to be just the right height to hit you in the very wrong spot as a man.\u00a0 😮\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I went into a long bout with depression and anxiety due to the loss of my vision and losing the ability to see to do most of the things I was used to doing in my life.\u00a0 I secluded myself into my home for three years without going anywhere after an anxiety attack so bad one evening in a store that I thought I was having a heart attack.\u00a0 It took a lot for my fiance to get me to seek help.\u00a0 Once I got the help I needed my life started to get better,\u00a0 Now, a few years later and I have learned Orientation and Mobility training and later gotten myself a beautiful Golden Retriever, Golden Lab mix and have the confidence to go anywhere with her.\u00a0 Thanks to Leader Dogs For The Blind<\/a> for teaching me that it is OK to live a normal life and how to get around on my own.<\/p>\n

\"Picture
Misty and I in our front yard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My name is Chris, I currently hold the Amateur Radio call sign of NO7E.\u00a0 I’m a visually impaired Extra Class Amateur radio operator originally licensed in New Jersey as N2OEU when the no-code license was introduced. I later upgraded to a Technician plus after passing my code test at 5, then the 13 wpm in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_mc_calendar":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-151","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/no7e.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}