[QCWA] Straight Key Night 2010 and the aftermath

[Amateur Radio Operator N5GE]

Welcome back to the hobby Jeffery!

It's been a long time since I participated in SKN.  I don't remember whether it
was in '81 or '82, but I took second place one of those January's.

I live in Arlington and work mostly CW except on 6m and 2m.

Your antennas are interesting and I am experiencing the same here regarding
towers.  At 66 It gets harder each year, but one I get up to the top I enjoy
working on the antennae.

I hope to hear you on one of these days.

73,

Tom Childers
Radio Amateur N5GE
Licensed since 1976
QCWA Life Member 35102
ARRL Life Member
Retired Professional
C# Software developer
http://www.n5ge.net

On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:51:10 -0600, Jeffrey Angus <jangus at suddenlink.net> wrote:

>The last time I was on HF was Straight Key Night 1997. I know,
>it's been a while.
>
>What a horror story. It took me 4 hours to make a single QSO
>and that was a station 25 miles away.
>
>Having recently moved to Central Texas (what a change from
>Los Angeles) I decided to give it another try.
>
>This time I put up a simple 20 meter dipole, 15' off the ground
>from the house to the apartment towards the back of the lot.
>
>Success! within 5 minutes (and on my first call) I worked a guy
>in Princeton IL.
>
>Well, the next day, I decided to put up the 40' tower I moved
>with the other 33+ tons of stuff I brought with me. Ya know,
>putting those things up seemed a whole lot easier at 25 then
>it did this time at 57.
>
>Now, what to do for an antenna? (I've always had miserable
>antennas on HF.) This time, I decided to try something different.
>
>A 102' doublet fed with 40' of open wire line and an MFJ Versa
>Tuner. (Ah... old school antenna.)
>
>Oh God, I think I broke the S-meter on my Icom IC-761. So this
>is what HF is supposed to sound like?
>
>Just playing with RX only on RTTY, I logged about 30 states and
>5 countries in the first hour I had things connected.
>Admittedly, it was during the RTTY Roundup contest. ;-)
>
>So the next step was installing Ham Radio Deluxe 4.0 SP4. The
>use of a few clip leads and assorted other "hay wire" connections,
>I could at least receive stuff with the DM780 software and the
>sound card.
>
>Oh my, this is like waking up after being in a coma for the past 43
>years.
>
>So the past few days I've been home brewing all the "nice and tidy"
>cables and an interface box to tie everything together.
>
>It really is weird having fun with the radios after all these years of
>frustration. Good thing I'm just too stubborn for my own good.
>
>Jeff-1.0
>wa6fwi
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