AD4Z Julio Henriquez

Team: North America 4 West (Team Leader)

Country: USA

Age: 57

Occupation: Network Integrator

I was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. My passion for radio began at the age of 6. I would watch and listen to my father communicate with other ham radio operators. At the age of 10, my father taught me Basic Electronics and Morse code. At the age of 11, I obtained my first license as HI3JEI and immediately became a contester. Three years later, I upgraded to General Class making my call sign HI3JH. In the Dominican Republic once you are a ham for 30 years you automatically upgrade to a Superior Class license (2×1). I then became HI3K and that was later changed to HI3A.

In 1990 my family and I immigrated to the USA. In 1995 I proudly became a United States Citizen. I received an Extra Class license with the call sign AD4IL (1993) after taking the required exams and successfully passing them all in one day. Via the Vanity call program I was able to change to my current call sign AD4Z.

I presently reside in Miami, FL. I am and active DXer and Contester. At this time I do not have much space for antennas in my QTH. For major competitions I operate from Loma del Toro (HI3A) located in the Dominican Republic where we have a big antenna farm on the top of a 4000 foot high mountain. In the United States I normally operate as part of multi-op teams. For the past 3 years I have been operating the station of my friend and partner in WRTC, Dan Thompson (W4UH).

I’m looking forward to participating in WRTC-2014, because I consider this to be the competition with the most prestige in the life of a contester. In addition to this, it is a great opportunity to share my skills and meet with the world’s best operators.