[NLRS] Introduction--new to the list

[John Burkhardt]

Hello NLRS and thank you for adding me to the list!
I'm a new ham having just earned my license in 2023 and have since been working mostly FT8 on the HF bands. VHF/UHF is still a bit mysterious to me, but having learned just a little bit about the 6m band, I tuned in on May 11th during that auroral event and was rewarded with the craziest sounding signals! I was hooked. I couldn't work the station because they we always working another station when the faded in, but it was so cool listening. I'm at EN34, that station was at EN37-about 175 miles. This morning, having dutifully learned that sporadic E and 6m propagation tends to be more prevalent as the summer months come, I tuned into 6m this morning and worked three stations in Texas and three more in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I am hooked.

Along with operating digital on HF bands. I've also been learning CW. My home station used most times is an Icom IC-7300 using a 44-foot doublet and I have been very pleased with its performance. Portable, I'm on an Icom 705 using a variety of antennas to check out how they work and generally just experimenting. I feel a VHF amplifier coming on for that rig.

Thanks again, I'm looking forward to meeting you this year at Aurora 2024.

John Burkhardt, KF0AE, 73
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