Welcome to my site! My name is Chad Gatesman. I use this site to share personal information and interests with the rest of the world. I was born in 1976 in the Clarion County, (Western) PA, and grew up there for 17 years before going to college.

I graduated from Indiana University of PA with a BS in Computer Science Language and Systems Track including a minor in Mathematics in 1998. I interned with IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY for 6 months doing development on the S/390 mainframe. In 1998, I accepted a job offer with Bristol Technology specializing in cross-platform development. I was with Bristol Technology for 9 years. I moved to Danbury, CT where Bristol Technology headquarters was. In 2007, Bristol Technology was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. I stayed aboard with Hewlett-Packard and have been working as an Expert Software Designer of the flagship product acquired from Bristol Technology.

In 2004, I purchased a house in Southbury, CT. In 2007, I married my wife, and we've been extremely happy in Southbury, ever since. We have a Pug named Maisy, a French Bulldog named Stewie, and a cat named Blacky (Yes, he's black.).

My interests in radio were all started because of a good friend of mine--Scott McClements (WU2X). Around 1999-2000, he had recently moved up to NY from PA, and we spent a lot of time together. During this time he introduced me to CB radio and shortwave listening. As you all know, this was around a solar cycle peak, and it was a great time to see what you were capable of doing on HF. Time went by and as the solar cycle changed so did some of my interests.

I grew up working in my family's auto body shop as a kid, and I've always had a lot of interest in cars. It was a small childhood dream come true in 1999 when I bought my 1999 Mustang GT. Over the years, I made a lot of changes to the car. You can see what all I've done with my Mustang on my Mustang Page. I became actively involved in Late Model Mustangs of Connecticut in 2002, and I have been a club officer for several years, now.

In 2006, Scott got his Amateur Extra class license. From then on, he was very persistent in encouraging me to try to get my license (like a good Elmer should). When the FCC lifted the Morse Code requirements, there was really nothing stopping me but putting in the study time. In March of 2008, I obtained my Extra class license in one visit to the local ARRL headquarters. I was given the AB1IL callsign which I quickly switched over to the W1CEG vanity callsign.

Since I got my ham license, I've been slowly growing my shack with the help of Scott (WU2X) and Lee (WW2DX). I currently have an 80M off-center fed dipole up about 60 feet in the air. In the shack, I am operating with a Kenwood TS-940S with a Heil PR-781 boom microphone. Occasionally, I am also driving a Kenwood TL-922A amplifier.

My radio interests are solely in HF. I enjoy working DX and ragchewing with fellow ham operators on the lower bands. I haven't been doing this long enough to have really gotten into contesting, but I'm looking forward to getting my foot in there someday. However, I've been spending a lot of my shack time on a Software Defined Radio development project WU2X and myself have taken on. I would say that Software Defined Radio was the icing on the cake to really real me in and get licensed. It has really added a whole new perspective on Amateur Radio, and I'm thrilled to be an active participant to the development of this fairly new technology.