Was hanging out here a bit last year and just found you in my ever expanding bookmarks.

Got Technician and General in November and just passed Extra a couple weeks ago. That was all easy stuff!

Now the hard part is:

Learning CW, Building a tilt up tower, Coming up with the cash for rotators, antennas, cable, coax, rigs and other equipment that I probably don't even need.

Funny how the original intention was to get some e-com going on but somehow it has become yet another monster.

73-K6PLE

Hello,

Congratulations on the licensing and welcome aboard :-)

Gil.

Hi Paul,
Welcome!  Put learning CW first on your list and you won't even need the tower.  As you've probably read, CW carries about 100 times better than SSB. I work the world with a simple piece of wire up in the trees.  Then again, I know a little about your QTH and tall trees may be a issue.

ps:  good luck with the drought.  I'm afraid you guys in CA are about to really learn how much we take our utilities for granted.

Thanks Bob and Gil,

You are right about Cali running out of water. I keep wondering if there will be a mass exodus out to your neck of the woods.

CW is moving along pretty good, I can copy 18-20wpm charterers with a BIG 5-10 wpm spacing from my CW Machine but as soon as I try to copy on the air, my brain locks up. I have convinced myself that this is because I am new at it.  Which, well, is true, I got my first key for Christmas. I have now slowed the machine to 12wpm with standard spacing in an attempt to overcome the Farnsworth gap.

And yes, I need would like to get up a little higher and create a bit of directivity as I am on the edge of a small valley and the hills and mountains are a bit challenging here. The tower I speak of is a modest tilt-up home made out of a few commercial light standards I had laying around the property. It would blend nicely into the 10 or so oak trees i have on the upper part of the property. There is nobody behind me as I share the fence line with the Tejon/Keen ranch. I really got the hots for a Log Periodic and a K-3 for a dedicated QRP CW setup.

I have had a 135ft flattop up since before licensing and have been listening throughout the bands ever since with my 897D.

I generally check into the Mission Trail Net 3857.5kH (SSB) nightly at 8 pacific if you are still up at that time, give me a shout and we can QSY somewhere to practice CW.

Thanks Again,

Paul-K6PLE

Nice of you to stop by and say hi! It's not a super active forum but everyone here is real FB. I'm in the western Texas area and my modest antenna often gets into California just fine. I'm new to CW as well so if you would like to attempt a QSO sometime just let me know. I'm good at going slow so don't worry about having to get your speed up first. Like you say, practicing on the air is a bit different than using a code machine so it's nice if you can get on the air early without stressing over speed and mistakes etc.

Congratulations Paul, and welcome to Extra class, you earned it.


I always encourage folks to get on the air as soon as they know Morse code, even if it's only at 5 WPM, your code speed will increase rapidly if you're having fun making real contacts as opposed to the sometimes boring and monotonous code practice. Trust me, there are plenty of us out there that will gladly slow down. Just resign to the fact that you WILL screw up at some point right in the middle of a contact but........ so what!? It's not the end of the world. Now go have some fun, good luck. 73 de KK0G

Quote from: KK0G on April 02, 2015, 05:27:24 PM
Congratulations Paul, and welcome to Extra class, you earned it.


I always encourage folks to get on the air as soon as they know Morse code, even if it's only at 5 WPM, your code speed will increase rapidly if you're having fun making real contacts as opposed to the sometimes boring and monotonous code practice. Trust me, there are plenty of us out there that will gladly slow down. Just resign to the fact that you WILL screw up at some point right in the middle of a contact but........ so what!? It's not the end of the world. Now go have some fun, good luck. 73 de KK0G

Never thought it about it as earned, more like memorized it! HI HI. Really, I recognized a lot of the math and already knew ice, eli and ohm from years of electrical work. It was a bit disappointing as the test had exactly 0 math questions.

Don't know if you are listening now but I am tuned to 14060kH. Would be interesting to see if I can reach out to Iowa!

Paul-K6PLE

Quote from: K6PLE on April 02, 2015, 07:55:41 PM

Quote from: KK0G on April 02, 2015, 05:27:24 PM
Congratulations Paul, and welcome to Extra class, you earned it.


I always encourage folks to get on the air as soon as they know Morse code, even if it's only at 5 WPM, your code speed will increase rapidly if you're having fun making real contacts as opposed to the sometimes boring and monotonous code practice. Trust me, there are plenty of us out there that will gladly slow down. Just resign to the fact that you WILL screw up at some point right in the middle of a contact but........ so what!? It's not the end of the world. Now go have some fun, good luck. 73 de KK0G

Never thought it about it as earned, more like memorized it! HI HI. Really, I recognized a lot of the math and already knew ice, eli and ohm from years of electrical work. It was a bit disappointing as the test had exactly 0 math questions.

Don't know if you are listening now but I am tuned to 14060kH. Would be interesting to see if I can reach out to Iowa!

Paul-K6PLE

Give me a call and I'll see if I can copy.

I,m not resonant on 20 lets go to 40, say 7025kH.

Paul

I'll be at 7.037 for my nightly sked with KC9TNH at 0200Z, feel free to drop in if you hear us.