Ham Radio People Metro ATL

[Klif]

Ran across this really old thread. My antenna is a MFJ-200- 43 Foot Self Supporting Vertical Antenna for 160-6 meters. It's pretty tall but sits on a fold over base so I can lay it over if I need to do any maintenance. Being a vertical it requires a ground radial field. One came with the antenna and I put it in place but just pegged it to the ground. A couple of years later the weedeater grabbed it and pulled some of it up and the lawnmower ripped the rest of it out of the ground, so it sat idle for a coupe of years. My wife got me an Icon IC-7300 for Christmas so I have been slowly building an improved radial field. It has 16 wire radials that are each 46 feet long. We are trenching an inch and a half down and burying the wires to keep them safe from lawnmowers. We have 3 left to do as it's not easy, at our age, to get down and poke wire in the ground and cover it up for that long a distance.

So, bottom line is now that I'm retired and no longer need an office for work this room will become my new shack and I should be back on the air as N5GWU in about 2 weeks, give or take, depending on the weather. I'm really looking forward to it.

I am an old Morse Op but haven't copied any in a few years, so I got on the W1AW and copied a few of their previous qualifying runs and did 10wpm, then 15 and 20 pretty easily. Now I have my key out and am practicing getting my sending back up to speed.

I am really looking forward to getting back on the air.

Sorry to bring up a really long past thread but wanted to nudge folks to see if there are any other active hams still here on ODT

73

 

[Klif]

Can I borrow your call sometimes ? I got busy and let mine expire in 2017

I'd really rather that you didn't. It's pretty easy to pass the General test and I'd imagine easy enough to get your old call back.

 

[Klif]

There is a lot of new stuff out there. I'm going to stick, for the time being, with rag chewing on HF and some CW when the mood strikes me. I've got GMRS and 2 meter gear along with a good CB but they just don't "sing" to me anymore. I don't contest since I'm not a big gun with a tower and beams and big amps. It's just like when I took my T bucket to car shows. Some people liked it, some didn't, the kids all wanted to sit in it and make vroom sounds and I was good with that. Mama put your kid in there and let them have fun. Folks look down on that, I don't care. There were 100,000 dollar cars and I don't care about that. There is room in any hobby for people doing their own things.

 

[Electra_glide_ryder]

There’s still a few active Hams on ODT. Your antenna with that 7300 will be enough for contesting during this really great sunspot period. I can work the world on 10 meters with only 5 watts and a dipole. 20 & 40 are also wide open. If you can bang out CW the sky’s the limit. If you are in the west Georgia area, our club is very active with all types of activities. WGARS.com 73

 

[Georgia Terrapin]

Klif, have fun getting back on the air! My shack sits in a hole in Cherokee County. Every direction from the house is uphill, so even my 3rd floor attic antenna is down low. It's still fun. I can't handle CW yet, but I like RTTY and PSK31, so those digital modes broaden my reach a bit. Again, have fun.

73

 

[Klif]

Klif, have fun getting back on the air! My shack sits in a hole in Cherokee County. Every direction from the house is uphill, so even my 3rd floor attic antenna is down low. It's still fun. I can't handle CW yet, but I like RTTY and PSK31, so those digital modes broaden my reach a bit. Again, have fun.

73

Thanks much Georgia Terrapin, I just ran the coax into the shack and hooked it up to my old Kenwood TS-430S. I've got newer radios but wanted to see if everything was working OK before I fired them up. I haven't run the grounds yet (waiting on Amazon to deliver some wire and a bus bar to run into the shack for a good ground. I'm on 20 meters now and hearing some pretty good code and a little bit of SSB. I didn't hear anything on 40 meters or 80 but it's early in the day for them anyway. I'll be glad when everything is in place and I can start my CQ chant and I'm shopping for a new key/keyer since I'm old and it's hurting my wrist to work my straight key for more than a minute or two. At some point I'll start trying out the RTTY and other modes. It's been years since I ran the early days of packet so there is still a learning curve there.
73

 

[Georgia Terrapin]

Good luck, Klif! I hope you have fun out there.

73,
Greg

 

[wolfmanrogers]

Meshtastic is the new HAM.