KK Broadcast Engineering is operated by myself, Kevin C. Kidd, a ham radio operator and severe weather spotter.

I am also an avid Golfer, Atlanta Braves Fan and NASCAR racing fan. After 3 years of high school electronics, I attended and graduated from Columbia (TN) State Community College with a major in Electronics and a Minor in Computer Technology (and a 3.5 grade point average I might add). I have been involved in Broadcast and Recording Studio Engineering and Commercial Two Way Radio Repair since graduating from college in 1982. I went to work for Lawrenceburg Communications (a local 2-way radio company) June 11, 1982 the Monday after graduating from college on the previous Friday. I was promoted to Service Manager after 4 years (1986) and remained as service manager until September 1994 when I left Lawrenceburg Comm. to become the local 911 Director. I remained employed with the 911 District until April 1998 when I left there to pursue a full time radio engineering career. After taking my first Broadcast Engineering job with WCMG-AM in Lawrenceburg, TN in 1983, I have steadily built my business to 17 stations in the Middle Tennessee and North Alabama area. I have built studios or transmitter sites or performed major site modifications for many of these stations in the past few years. I will post pictures of some of these stations as time and space permits.

I was born March 1st, 1962 here in Lawrenceburg, TN and I am married to the former Connie Lee Irelan and am a decadent non-smoker (I quit a 5 pack a day habit in 1989 and you know how ex-smokers are). I quit after learning that my best friend, Norge Buie a heavy smoker as well, was terminal with cancer. I smoked the last one in the pack at lunch that day and haven't had another since.

Amateur Radio Operator

I was originally licensed at the age of 16 as a Novice in 1977 in an amateur radio class taught by Mr. Bob Plunkett (WA4FWH). After getting my call, WD4RAT, I for some reason, partially lost interest in amateur radio and did not make my first contact for about a year. About a year after the radio class I met one of my classmates, Clay Webster (WD4OJU) who, during the class, had also passed his Novice and shortly upgraded to General. Clay was going to Atlanta, GA to the FCC field office to upgrade his license to Advanced in a week. Myself and another friend, Tim Price (AB4UP, ex-WD4PVM), went on a wild studying spree with visions of a new Technician or General Class tickets dancing in our heads. Needless to say we had not anticipated the conditions that would have to be endured getting to and taking the test. We left Lawrenceburg (Clay was a Patrolman with the Lawrenceburg Police Department, now a Lt.) at around midnight on the day of the test. The field office opened at about 8am and after a 6 hour drive and 1 time zone change, we got there about 7am and slept in the car for a few minutes. Upon entering the testing room and starting the code test (13 wpm), it was obvious that copying code in my condition was out of the question. The acoustics in the testing room were so bad that it didn't really even sound like code but more like a solid tone. I quickly decided that I would be happy with a simple Tech license and go home. That was not to be either. While standing outside waiting to be admitted, several of the other "hopefuls" were discussing the tests that they had taken in the past. Every one of them mentioned that they had failed the Tech/General test that began with Question #51 every time that they had taken it (In those days there were 4 or 5 different tests of 50 questions each for the Tech/General license. The first test started with Question #1 and the second with #51 and so on) . This test was UNPASSABLE. Guess what. Tim and I both got and failed that miserable #51 test. After that I was bound that I would upgrade no matter what. A few months later I did get my Tech license (passing the test starting with #101) at a quarterly FCC testing session held in Nashville, TN. I however had no ear for Morse Code and failed the code test a total of 5 times (the last two by one incorrect answer) before finally passing it about a year later. The last time that I took the code test I was copying around 20 wpm and copied 100% of the code that the tester sent with no errors. They didn't even make me fill out the test question form. I remained a General class until April 1991 when I finally upgraded to Advanced at a VEC session in Russelville, Alabama.

When mobile I usually stay on 10, 15 or 20 meters (depending on what is open) or at night 80 meters around 3.980 mHz. My mobile HF rig is a Kenwood TS-50 with an MFJ DSP filter and a TJ Antennas (Nott Ltd) BB3 Screwdriver antenna. This thing rocks... First contact on the new screwdriver was an SP3. In the near future I will be upgrading to a 500 watt amp.

Severe Weather Spotter

Severe weather has always intrigued me (lightning damaged equipment does not, but the cause of lightning does). In the Spring of 1989, Barry Roberts, a local amateur meteorologist, (also rocket scientist, or at least he works for NASA) approached me about getting the local amateur radio community involved in a severe weather spotter network. The Middle TN / North Alabama area is extremely prone to severe weather and tornado activity (averaging about 1 tornado per year in Lawrence County) and at that time had little to no coverage by National Weather Service Radar or NOAA Weather Radio. With the urging of then Lawrence County Emergency Management Director Ava Jean Moore, Barry and I (mostly Barry) launched the Lawrence County Skywarn Network. Within mere days (two I think) of completing the required Weather Spotter Training provided by the National Weather Service, we had our first bout of severe weather in Lawrence County that produced a tornado in a bordering county. As it turned out that spring became one of the most active severe weather seasons in our history. We had a severe thunder storm every couple of days (or so it seemed) that produced a tornado or damaging down burst somewhere in the area. For the first 4 or 5 years I worked almost all of the communications via amateur radio and GMRS radio from spotters to the local media and National Weather Service Office in Nashville, TN. Since mid 1995 I have escaped from the radio room (located at the Lawrence County Emergency Operations Center) to become a tornado chaser with Barry (in the same spirit as Twister).

Using my (since traded off) 1995 Dodge Dakota 4X4 complete with HF, VHF, UHF and cellular communications (and satellite if you count the GPS receiver), Barry and I have chased potential tornado producing Severe Thunder Storms all over the Middle TN / N. Alabama/N. Mississippi/Eastern Arkansas area. With Barry's knowledge of weather and my hardware (not to mention that I still retain some of the driving skills from when I raced motorcycles and four-wheelers) we have, in a single afternoon, driven over 600 miles (mostly on back roads) chasing or in search of the elusive funnel cloud. Due to the hilly terrain in our area it is sometimes possible to be literally UNDER a rotating thunderstorm and not be able to see a funnel forming. With the flat land in the Plains States where a storm can be seen for miles, we decided that it would be kind of refreshing to be able to see what is actually happening from some where other than directly under a forming funnel.

Atlanta Braves Fan

Even though Bobby Cox does some things that I find pretty dumb, he has to be about the best manager in the NL. To have carried his team as far as they did with the injuries that they suffered, was nothing short of brilliant.

Go Braves!

Golfer

I currently have a 16.4 handicap (Mar. 2000). If I could get rid of that couple of *^&#^ bad holes each round and learn to putt, my handicap would drop another 7 or 8 strokes. I currently am a member of the Lawrenceburg Golf and Country Club and play at least twice a week (when not running to radio stations somewhere). People used to tell me that golf was an expensive hobby. Anyone who has ever raced a motorcycle or four-wheeler (hare scramble) knows what an expensive hobby is (I did both for years). The bikes that we were riding cost over $4000 and I was spending about $150 every race weekend for gas, food, etc. IF I didn't break anything on me or the bike. Golf is cheap beside those things or bass fishing.

NASCAR Racing

DODGE IS GETTING BACK INTO THE RACING BUSINESS

My whole family are car racing fans. I like Richard Petty (he will always be KING), Sterling Marlin (a fellow Tennessen), "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville" Elliot (even if he does drive a Ford), and anybody that beats a Ford or Dale Earnheart (even if he drives a Chevy). Actually Ford has some really nice cars these days (T-Bird, Explorer and Crown Vic) but bad experiences from several years ago have left me with a lasting bad attitude toward them.

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