Got up, grabbed a cup of coffee and hit the HAM shack at 7:30 this morning.
Fired up the 40m band and heard all kinds of QSO's going on. Most were obviously between HAM's that know each other well, and regularly meet on the same frequency every day. It's kinda hard breaking into a round table discussion like that as a new guy on the band. Spun the dial some more and came across the R.V. Service Net on 7.230.0 Mhz, the net control operator Bill (KI4OCN) welcomed me in as check-in #16. Bill is in North Carolina and gave me a 5 X 9 signal report. Then another station broke in (VE3BXB) in up state New York who also gave me a 5 X 9 report. That in itself put a big shit eating grin on my face.
Then I went outside, lowered the 10m home brew dipole I had up, and replaced it with a home brew 20m dipole. I should add that this particular antenna is no where near high enough to be fully effective, and with the wind blowing, one of the legs does come in momentary contact with a tree branch.
Again I start spinning the dial on the 20m band, hear a bunch of QSO's in progress, then on 14.209.0 I hear a station with a funny sounding call sign calling out "CQ DX North America"....I return his call, and he comes back to me. The station was S52QM, Tom in Western Slovainia who gave me a 5 X 9 signal report.......
I haven't had this HF radio for 24 hours yet, put up two home brew dipole antennas that aren't at optimum height, and got 5 X 9 reports on the first 3 HF contacts I made, and one of those from across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe......
I'm Stoked.......
Fired up the 40m band and heard all kinds of QSO's going on. Most were obviously between HAM's that know each other well, and regularly meet on the same frequency every day. It's kinda hard breaking into a round table discussion like that as a new guy on the band. Spun the dial some more and came across the R.V. Service Net on 7.230.0 Mhz, the net control operator Bill (KI4OCN) welcomed me in as check-in #16. Bill is in North Carolina and gave me a 5 X 9 signal report. Then another station broke in (VE3BXB) in up state New York who also gave me a 5 X 9 report. That in itself put a big shit eating grin on my face.
Then I went outside, lowered the 10m home brew dipole I had up, and replaced it with a home brew 20m dipole. I should add that this particular antenna is no where near high enough to be fully effective, and with the wind blowing, one of the legs does come in momentary contact with a tree branch.
Again I start spinning the dial on the 20m band, hear a bunch of QSO's in progress, then on 14.209.0 I hear a station with a funny sounding call sign calling out "CQ DX North America"....I return his call, and he comes back to me. The station was S52QM, Tom in Western Slovainia who gave me a 5 X 9 signal report.......
I haven't had this HF radio for 24 hours yet, put up two home brew dipole antennas that aren't at optimum height, and got 5 X 9 reports on the first 3 HF contacts I made, and one of those from across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe......
I'm Stoked.......