Any radio hams out there? Say hello.

[Taurus Flyer]

This is my rig next to the 40m transceiver I showed earlier, a 5 band QRP morse Mountaintopper CW transceiver with an output power of 4 Watts maximum. I now temporarily use a vertical in the house, about 3 m long on the first floor. Made another QSO with Croatia this morning, 1250 km. I designed the antenna tuner for this rig. As a tuner with a bridge for SWR measurement, it has always been a safe load for the transmitter. The SWR measurement works on the power of the transmitter, so does not require a separate power supply. Once the antenna is tuned in, switch off the SWR bridge and the antenna is directly coupled to the tuner. The fied strength meter I use for fine tuning. The morse key works with iambic B.
The set is powered from a 2500 mAh battery and serves for outdoor use with a wire antenna that I shoot into a tree with a catapult, for example or a 5 a 6 m vertical.

[Taurus Flyer]

The field antenna and capapult

I first unwind about thirty meters and put it in eight shape in front of me. I use my catapult upside down, the handle on top and the fork on the bottom. I tie the carabiner to the end of the rope and shoot it over a branch of the tree. Then I first use a small pulley with a rope attached to the carabiner and pull it upwards and then lift the antenna. The pulley makes pulling down the antenna and pulley easier. I don't have to pull it back over the branch with the risk of it getting caught. First I lower the antenna and with the double rope of the pulley I pull the first rope out of the tree.
73 the PD7CW

[tedbmoss]

Ted Moss WA7VQR Peoria, Arizona. mostly used ham license for 52 MHz R/C. Tech + license (grandfathered).

[jmendoza]

Jay Mendoza here,
K5JJM

I'm in Mission Viejo California USA

[flea_flyer]

Hi all
Quick hello from the land of Oz. Call sign is VK7GY - details on QRZ.com. HF only, but not very active and like many others I prefer CW (in my case, for the challenge). I've been a radio amateur since late 70s. I tend to stick with 80 and 40 metres.
Hope to get into it a bit more as I retired yesterday!
Gerry

[Pufango]

Hello Re ham radio,
I started out with good intentions ,made a pixie transmitter and contacted a society so I could get a ham license. So far so good !then I set my mind to learn Morse code .Thats when things started to go down hill,I had learned about fifteen letters .But it started to take over my mind I couldn’t get to sleep I just kept going over and over the dots and dashes until I had to give up . Did anybody else suffer a similar situation to me and how did you get through the barrier ? Tony .

[smallrc]

I was first licensed in 1973, upgraded to Amateur Extra in 1979. I still have some older Kraft and Ace RC equipment on 6 meters.

I operate CW on 20 and 40 meters most of the time, usually chasing DX.

73 de WBØVPS
Southwest Missouri, USA

[Grif]

N7IVS Extra
Was WN7LPA but didnt upgrade 1970(ish)

[Martin]

Here's an interesting software defined receiver, based around the very cheap Pi Pico, one of the OLED displays we often use, and a couple of other chips.

This is video 3 in the series, best watch them all and look at the documentation, if you're interested.

[Phil_G]

Just a reminder to UK hams that we should re-validate our licenses at least every five years:
https://rsgb.org/main/operating/licensi ... alidation/
There's no test or any awkward questions, its just to say "yep, I'm still here..."
I've missed the 5 years a couple of times and got away with it so I try to do it every year.