So I'm thinking of keeping track of my radio hobby. Fairly recently I was bitten by the radio bug again after a number of years off the air. When I received the renewal mail again last fall it encouraged me to think about finally upgrading to General after 20 years as a no-code Tech.
When I originally was licensed in the early 90's the no-code license was new and I was able to take the test right away since I had been studying for my Novice for awhile before that but couldn't get motivated to learn the code. My original plan when I earned the Tech ticket was to upgrade to general fairly quickly but here I was 20 yrs later so this time I was going to really do it. I was glad to see the code test was removed so it was pretty easy to grab a book from our local candy store and study for a month. When I went in and took my test I passed with 100% correct the first try. A couple weeks later was Yaesu days here so I went in to see what deals they had knowing I couldn't afford to spend a whole lot. Luckily, they had a refurbed FT-450D that became my first HF rig and opened up that part of radio I was always missing.
This was during a time when 10m was busy all day so I kind of wondered if I really needed to upgrade at all. I was working the world primarily in the novice/tech portion of 10m! But that died down and now I spend almost all my time on 15m and 20m digital. I am starting to work on code again. I love the digital modes and am pretty sure I would love CW if I could just force myself to learn it. Sadly, I can send alright (not a good fist by any means) but I feel pretty unsure of receiving even at 5wpm. I'm trying to sit down and receive off the air a few times a week to work on my skills, hopefully I can eventually get the courage up to make a contact on CW.
Anyway, probably too much of a first post but that is my story. I plan on writing on here about my first contest experience (went pretty well), my early digital experiments (both 2m packet in the 90s and HF these days). Hopefully I'll be able to add my first real award (5 states away from WAS digital, 61 countries from DXCC), and I'm grabbing parts to stick up a new antenna in the back yard this summer. So on the odd chance anyone finds this, thanks for reading! .....73 de N0QBX
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