Director Mickey Cox (K5MC)

754 Cheniere Drew Rd  -  West Monroe, LA 71291-8542
318-397-1980          k5mc@arrl.org

I was fortunate to become a ham 40 years ago in July, 1968, at the age of 13 with the call WN5VQE. I've been a League member continuously since joining in the fall of 1968. In 1970 I became a traffic handler and was soon appointed an ARRL Official Relay Station; by the age of 17 I was the ARRL Route Manager for the LA Section. (In those days the duties of today's Section Traffic Manager was divided between the Route Manager/CW nets and the Phone Activities Manager/phone nets.) I exchanged WA5VQE for K5MC in April, 1977. Over the years I have also been quite active as a DXer and a contester. My operating awards include BPL, PSHR, 5BWAZ, 5BDXCC, 5BWAS, DXCC Challenge, and DXCC Honor Roll (mixed mode/CW).

In 1999 I became a candidate for LA Section Manager and was privileged to serve four consecutive terms from April 2000 through March 2008. Thanks to many hard working volunteers, there was a lot of progress made in the LA Section during my tenure as SM. During that time we helped formalize the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the MS and STX Sections; we also helped establish a Delta Division MOU with the AR, MS, and TN Sections. The LA HF ARES Net was started and continues to meet every Sunday at 7:30 PM on 3873 kHz. We established closer ties between ARES and NTS, held annual Simulated Emergency Tests (several times jointly with our neighbors in MS and STX), started a Field Day Awards Program for affiliated clubs, etc. I believe most of the active League members in LA will agree that I was an effective Section Manager.

Thanks to my early exposure to ham radio, I chose to study electrical engineering in college. Other than working in the Antenna Group at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, TX, for a few years in the late 1970s, I've spent my career teaching electrical engineering at LA Tech University. In addition to being a full professor of EE at Tech, I'm a Registered Professional Engineer. Among the courses I have taught are circuits, electromagnetics, electrical machinery, power systems, communication systems, and EE design. My research projects have focused primarily on electric power systems. For the past two years I have also served as the EE Program Chair at LA Tech.