Hello, My name is Karl Anderson and I am well, how you all say it, A newbie in the whole ham radio thing. I am loving every minute of it. I got into ham radio because of what seems to be the most generic excuse in ham radio, Emergency Communications. But I never knew just how much there was to do in ham radio.
My first experience with ham radio was Field Day 2009, before FD I never had seen an actual rig or an actually shack. I have seen my whole life towers the were owned by hams but I have never actually been up close let alone actually been able to use one before. It was that day that I tried for the first time SSB on 20M, Since that point I have loved HF and everything that comes with it. I enjoy it very much. There is something about shouting your callsign or the club callsign out over the air and hear something come back. Like I said I am a new ham and this is all very new to me!
I will soon be studying morse code. My Grandfather who actually was a international ham once held the callsign SM5ANB, He was from Sweden and when he was in the military he was a morse code operator and continued his hobby/job well into his life and I am sure he still does to this day. Unfortunately he became a silent key this June, but in honor of him I want to try to learn the code.
My rig for now is small, I own only and mostly 2m/440 radios, dualband and mono. I own a well its easier in a list.
Yaesu FT-60R HT (My First Radio)
2x RadioShack HTX-242 Mobile's
National Panasonic DR49 Shortwave
A Dual Band Radio Soon!
So far I have been really lucky and very happy with Ham Radio as a Hobby, I know that I am gonna continue this hobby. It is one of my more stable hobbies.
I have built a couple antennas, or helped assemble them. One of my pride and joys is the QFH antenna that I built for field day. It is for wxfax we have tested it a couple times but other than that we have not really ever gotten a decent signal out of it, so we are working on putting it up higher. We will get that soon! But I love my antennas I have 7 outside right now.
2m/440 Quarterwave
1 Discone antenna for police scanning
440 Beam for the W0IW 440 Echolink Repeater.
An Experimental Marconi antenna for SWL
The QFH
2m mobile magmount for experiments and whatnot.
Anyways thanks for reading!!
73
KD0HFQ
