Coming Back After All These Years

My name is Sam, and my amateur radio callsign is KC0KSV. I've technically been a ham for 10 years now, I just renewed my license last month. I am an amateur extra class license holder, which doesn't mean as much as it use to, but it does allow me access to all of the frequency spectrum alotted to hams.

I started in ham radio because I wanted to be a weather spotter for Sedgwick County Emergency Management. To be a weather spotter meant I had to be a ham. I got my Technician license and bought a used Yaesu dual-bander to put in my truck in May of 2001. The following August I upgraded to General and in November of 2001, I upgraded to Extra class. I found all of the tests ridiculously easy, except for the 5wpm code test, that was a bear. My Extra test took me 10 minutes to complete and I missed two questions.

I dropped $200 on a used Kenwood TS820s that I'm still using and another $150 on an Alpha Delta LB Plus multiband Dipole. With those, I was on the air. I staid with RACES for a couple of years before I decided to leave the group, if their leadership changes I would like to go back. Without the impetus of doing EMCOMM, my interest in radio waned and when an ice storm took down my antenna in January of '05 I hadn't used my HF rig in six months, so I just threw the antenna in the garage and forgot about it.
When I replaced my old pick-up with a newer vehicle, I never bothered to put the 2meter rig in, and I let my local club membership drop and I left ham radio behind.

Fast forward five years and I'm now newly married and newly laid-off from my job at Cessna. I injured my lower back so bad I was unable to walk for three months without a handful of painkillers and assistance. With no insurance, no one would help me much. The ER sure treated me different. There was, and is still, nothing to do but try to heal over time. I followed some emergency preparedness forums on my BlackBerry while I was recuperating. Ham radio came up and I followed those discussions. Bored, I looked around on the net and discovered Larry W2LJ's blog about his QRP operation and how much he loves ham radio. I went to the beginning of Larry's posts and read them straight through. I still look forward to Larry's post. Larry impressed me not only as ham, but as a person as well. We also have a lot in common. We are both devout Catholics, politically conservative, Revolutionary War afficianados, CERT members, and ham radio license holders (although I was a ham in name only). If you ever work me on the bands, you can blame W2LJ, he was the one that inspired me to get back into to the hobby.

Between 2010-2011 I mostly just read blogs and things about ham radio. I did, however, start looking for my ham gear that had been packed away when I moved in with my wife. I couldn't find my antenna, and with my personal econmics being what they are, I couldn't really replace it. I have two stepdaughters now, and there is actually a law that says you have to feed children everyday, three times a day. Who knew?

I tried to make a windom antenna with the coax set up as air wound choke balun. It worked like crap. I let the rig sit some more, but Larry and some other ham bloggers had stirred my dusty little ham soul. I made a commitment to get on the air for Field Day 2011. I went to the local candy store and bought a 4:1 Balun and converted my crappy windom into a dipole cut for 40 meters. It worked. I could work 15,20,40, meters. A week after Filed Day I found my Alpha Delta plus antenna in my brother's garage. Now where is that darn 2 meter whip??? I'm still using my homebrew 40 because I'm finding it difficult finding a place to string up that Alpha Delta dipole, it is so long.

My wife's family has a communal cabin on Fall River Lake, about 90 miles east of Wichita. I decided I would operate FD there as a 1 Alpha station, using two of those emergency jumpstart batteries and an inverter. Alas, my wife's car developed problems. I'm not much of a mechanic, but I have good friends who are, so I tore open the engine to replace the bad gaskets and intake manifold and my friend Greg helped me put it all back togther. He saved me at least $400 in labor and parts, and very probably more. I am grateful to my friend, and I am grateful for my friend. I have no complaints about the money I did spend to fix the car, but it meant I was going to be operating as a 1 Delta station from my basement on Field Day.

So June 25th arrives, and I'm down in the basement ready to go. My goal is to work at least 100 stations during FD. 1pm hits and the bands come alive. I start hitting everyone I hear calling CQ. My antenna is not optimally placed, and band conditions were short, and I have a hard time hitting either coast. Larry and his gang of merry brass pounders operate QRP, or 5 watts or less. I was operating 100 watts and still had trouble working stations. I also operated phone the whole time and left my old straight key alone. My CW skills are lamentable. I hope to improve them to at least 20wpm, but for now I will stick with the microphone.

All in all, I had a blast on Field Day! I can't wait for next year to do it all over again. I hope to be more prepared to operate at least as a 1 Echo station next year. Ideally, I will be brass pounding from my wife's uncle's nice aluminum dock. In my crafty little brain, I can see myself under a pop-up canopy (complete with mosquito netting) operating my rig on folding table with a couple of those jump start batteries and a cooler full of diet coke and sandwhiches. I'm thinking about a floating antenna. I could mount a vertical antenna on the lid of a plastic 5 gallon bucket with rocks, or something, to act as a ballast to keep it upright. I could thread the radials through the center of those foam noodles the kids play with, using pvc pipe to connect the noodles together. I wonder how much of a boost I'd get from a fresh water lake? I know salt water is an excellent ground to bounce signals from. This is probably not going to happen, but it would be cool if it worked out.

I think this post is long enough. I got some more stuff to talk about, but I will wait to post it.

73 y'all!