KG5NKW

After joining a bunch of online clubs, I thought joining the local radio club would be a good idea.
I went to the general meeting last night and met a group of great people. I know that there will be a lot I will learn from them.

If you are even remotely interested in amateur radio I highly suggest you look into the closest club to your home. The ARRL has a site to help you look up and find nearby clubs at: http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club

The one in McKinney is MARC at: http://www.mckinneyarc.org/

I have recently completed the level 1 Cwops course from cwops.com. For anyone who is serious about learning cw i can strongly recomend this program. It is free to sign up. The class meets 2 times a week over skype fro 8 weeks and is a great way to stay motivated. I have been attempting to learn cw off and on using tapes, internet resourses, and over the air listening since the 70's.




Great class and great resource. If you are seriouse about learning or increasing your speed then i suggest you check it out.

I ran over to Ham Radio Outlet to pick up a HT to play with.
I left with a programming cable, magnetic mount for car roof, a car adapter and a Yaesu FT-60R.
I have just finished programming it with the local repeater bands and it is fully charged. I can not wait to see how well it works.
I am thinking about offering up some CW classes on 2m and 70cm bands but doubt this radio would reach far enough to reach anyone needing the practice.

I did build a CW Keyer based off K3Ng's design on radioartisan.com. It currently has 10 memory buttons, 1 command button, 1 tx port, 1 side tone, and 1 Bencher iambic paddle. I have a adafruit i2c and 16x4 lcd on the way to add to it.

I have joined a few ham clubs to try to start being more social (hard for a die hard introvert like myself). I am also hoping to leverage the knowledge that is in the clubs to help me grow in CW proficiency. I have also decided to take the QRP plunge. That is not to say that I will not have a 100 watt+ station at the home shack but I think the low power challenge is more akin to my science and engineering mind.

SKCC - http://www.skccgroup.com - SKCC# 15607
FISTS - http://www.fistsna.org - FISTS# 17857
North American QRP CW Club - http://www.naqcc.info - NAQCC# 8424
4 state QRP - http://www.4sqrp.com - 4SQRP# 1221
Flying pigs - http://www.fpqrp.org - FPQRP# 3787
Second-class Operator's Club - http://www.qsl.net/soc - SOC# 1147
Color-Bust Liberation Army - https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CBLA/info - CBLA # 57

Hopping to build this site up as I progress through the world of ham radio with major emphasis on hand sent CW