General in the house, New HT.

[natrixgli]

This pointless thread is for no other reason then to proclaim that once again I'm a ham.

Took my Technician exam, then General today at AES Superfest in Milwaukee. I passed both. (1 wrong on Tech, 4 wrong on General.)

Yay, Me!

While I was there (at AES), I decided to scoop up a HT, got the Kenwood TH-F6A which I look forward to raving about shortly. So far it seems like a neat little rig, though I can only use the RX until I'm in ULS. One thing that drew me to this particular box was it's ability to receive SSB, which is handy. I threw a random chunk of wire on it clipped to a telescopic aerial earlier and heard some rag chewing on 20m, so I know it's capable. Though I'm sure it's not nearly as good as a dedicated SWL/HF radio.

I've been out of the hobby for a couple of years, and it blows me away how much these HT's have shrunk in the last couple of years. I remember thinking the Kenwood TH-78a was tiny! Years ago you could get tiny HT's but they were mostly low-power units, and QUITE expensive.

Cheerio


-n8

[N1SQB]

Congrats on the license. Welcome aboard! That is one heck of a toy for getting back in the saddle sort of speak. Good for you. I know what you mean about the size. I love my Yaesu FT60 personaly. With my bear paws, I would not be able to enjoy the kenwood but I do hope it works well for ya. Once again, congrats on the license.

Manny

[natrixgli]

Originally Posted by N1SQB

Congrats on the license. Welcome aboard!

Thanks for the congrats. I had a technician class license years ago, but it expired in '05, so I was not eligible for renewal.

Now that I've got the license back, my next goal is to learn CW as soon as possible. I'm thinking of self-imposing a no HF rule until I'm at least reasonably proficient with code. There's a practical reason for it, though - since I'm an apartment dweller, I will have to keep my output power pretty low to avoid causing any RFI, and CW is definitely the way to make the most out of low power. (that and a good antenna... we'll see what the landlord will allow!)

I'm teaching myself using the Koch method which is going much better than using those crappy 5WPM tapes I tried previously. Learning in slo-mo gives the brain too much time to draw imaginary diagrams and stuff. At 18WPM, you have no choice but to just equate a sound to a letter, number, prosign, etc.

Cheerio, and thanks again!

-n8

[bearcat012]

Originally Posted by natrixgli

This pointless thread is for no other reason then to proclaim that once again I'm a ham.

Took my Technician exam, then General today at AES Superfest in Milwaukee. I passed both. (1 wrong on Tech, 4 wrong on General.)

Yay, Me!

While I was there (at AES), I decided to scoop up a HT, got the Kenwood TH-F6A which I look forward to raving about shortly. So far it seems like a neat little rig, though I can only use the RX until I'm in ULS. One thing that drew me to this particular box was it's ability to receive SSB, which is handy. I threw a random chunk of wire on it clipped to a telescopic aerial earlier and heard some rag chewing on 20m, so I know it's capable. Though I'm sure it's not nearly as good as a dedicated SWL/HF radio.

I've been out of the hobby for a couple of years, and it blows me away how much these HT's have shrunk in the last couple of years. I remember thinking the Kenwood TH-78a was tiny! Years ago you could get tiny HT's but they were mostly low-power units, and QUITE expensive.

Cheerio


-n8

Congrats on your General. The F6A is nice. Here is an idea. Look at the Yaesu FT-817.

It is like a HT but you can attempt to transmit (5W) on all those bands you just earned.

[steveh552]

Congrats. Looks like a nice radio.

[natrixgli]

Originally Posted by bearcat012

Congrats on your General. The F6A is nice. Here is an idea. Look at the Yaesu FT-817.

It is like a HT but you can attempt to transmit (5W) on all those bands you just earned.

That's exactly the HF radio I had in mind, I like a challenge.

First I have to come up with an apartment antenna strategy, though. With low power, a halfway decent antenna is going to be all that much more important.

Oddly enough, while investigating for possible 'stealth' antenna options I found a long wire mounted in my attic, clipped a lead onto it, and the other end to my TH-F6A and was able to tune in quite a bit of action on 40m and 20m. ( around 1600 CDT) So looks like the HF RX capabilities of this little Kenwood are at least respectable. Bonus!

Cheers,

-n8

[KR4BD]

Congrats on getting your General. Believe it or not, the Kenwood TH-F6A HT has been around for over a decade! I got mine back in 1999 and still use it today. I still can't believe how they packed so much radio into that case. And half the size of it is the removable battery!

[natrixgli]

Originally Posted by KR4BD

Believe it or not, the Kenwood TH-F6A HT has been around for over a decade!

I can see how I missed it, since ten years ago, I could only afford ten year old radios....

I think the only new radio I ever owned was an Icom W21AT, which was kind of rubbish. It looked cool, though.


Cheerio,

-n8

[joe_disco_electronics]

Welcome back to the ham bands.
Hope to see you on the CW bands.
Use a straight key to learn the code. We have enough crappy fists on the air as it is.

[natrixgli]

Originally Posted by joe_disco_electronics

Use a straight key to learn the code. We have enough crappy fists on the air as it is.

I'm almost embarrased to admit what I'm using to practice sending....



-n8

[joe_disco_electronics]

Ok, I give... what is it and wheres the key?

[natrixgli]

It's a synthesizer. (musical instrument) I just load up a square wave and tap the #15 key on the keyboard. I "talk" to a computer program called 'fldigi' which tells me if I am making any sense or not. Hardest part for me right now is getting the spacing such that I can form words without merging letters together.

Yeah, I'm sure a straight key would be easier.

-n8