Member Bio

My Ham Journey. Who knows, others might find some of this helpful.

December 2023:

[12/01] It occurred to me today that I have never posted a picture of my radio setup. Here it is..

November 2023:

[11/18] I built my first antenna today, a 40m half-wave dipole. I have two 20′ flag poles flanking my MFJ-1917 fiberglass mast (I removed the top two sections so it would support the MFJ-918 1:1 balun attached to a 24″ long 1″ wide PVC pipe. I capped the top and slipped it over the top of the mast. I removed two sections from the fiberglass mast so that it could support the balun. I have a MFJ-1908HD on it’s way that will replace the temporary use of theMFJ-918. (That mast is normally for my end-fed antenna when portable.)

I used 12 gauge solid copper wire from Home Depot. I am gong to add a 20m and 10m in a fan dipole configuration to this once my MFJ-1908HD arrives and will still have enough wire to do more experiments. I want to do a long-wire antenna next.

I purposefully tuned it to the right half (voice) portion of the 40m band as that is where I spend most of my time. However, as you can see, it is well under 2.0 across the entire band. This is the first time I have been able to work 40m with zero radio tuning.  Plus, I can finally run a full (600 watts) of power.

Here is a picture of the antenna, and the SWR reading.

I did not have enough cable to reach the antenna the first night I built it, but special thanks to KI5DAY who loaned me a BNC-to-SNA adapter. I cobbled together all my various bits of coax while waiting for new coax to arrive. I kept it to 25 watts that night but could already tell it was going to do much better than my current solution, even at low power.

[11/11] I almost forgot to share a funny story from the RCWA November meeting. My wife, Karen, is “all-in” in her support of my ham radio journey. She came with me to the club meeting and was standing beside me while we all introduced ourselves with the typical “I am KJ5CGJ, Ossie” kind of thing. She is not a ham but did not want to be left out and said “I am W-I-F-E, Karen”. It took a moment for what she said to sink in but then we all had a good chuckle. She gets a kick anytime she hears Ray (K5CFY) tell me to tell W-I-F-E hello. hi hi. Here is a picture of the love of my life on her Vespa.

[11/05] Made my first CW contact today! Took me five minutes to work it out. hi hi.

October 2023:

[10/26]

I changed my end-fed from going nearly straight up 43′ to, instead, an inverted V configuration. Still not totally satisfied but.. I did get my second DX contact tonight.. Lucas from BC Canada.

Feeling pretty good about my ability to send CW, still struggling to decode CW. But I am going to jump on some CW nets and start seing how I fare. I think the sending skill is becaus I have taken to practicing on my steering wheel while driving back-n-forth to Bartlesville three days a week, hi hi. I pretty much tap out any signs/words/numbers I see.

I also decided to get a BuddiPole Long version. I just have not been real happy with my end-fed setup and want to try dipole. I have seen the portable dipole setup at a few RCWA events and the owners always seem happy with them. We’ll See.

[10/10]

Got my first DX contact tonight! JOHAN HILVEN (ON7HJA) on 40m, I was his first Oklahoma contact. Fun stuff.

HF is seriously adictive. I’m in serious trouble. hi hi.

[10/07]

I passed my general today! HF here I come. 🙂 Thanks to the Tulsa Amature Radio Club for holding the testing event today. Bonus, my little sister tested for and passed the Technician test, so we added another ham to the family today. She only missed one question… impressive!

[10/05]

Was signing up for the OMISS net membership… crazy coincidence, the mailing address is my home town.

[10/04]

Finally got my [MFJ-1917] 43′ fiberglass telescoping pole for my MFJ-1984HP end-fed antenna. I set it up and started listening to some HF. I have not had any luck on 10m SSB (the only phone I currently have access to), but I have been able to skim around and listen to people. I am glad I am because I made progress learning how to use the tools on the radio to help clear up the audio.

To keep it mobile, I cut a 3″ PVC pipe to height of just shy of the antenna collapsed. I then hook three ratchet straps to the top secured with 12″ ground steaks. This allows me to collapse ane remove the antenna from the PVC pipe when done for the night. Here is a picture of my antenna…

I jumped on to NetLogger to see if I could finally tune in to some of the HF nets and discovered the “3905 40m SSB Late Net” and learned about the The 3905 Century Club. Looking forward to getting involved in the coming weeks as soon as I pass my general.

September 2023:

Special Request: Got my end-fed antenna in and am setting that up this weekend. Being new to amature radio, I would appreciate any feedback on my intentions. Here are a couple schetches of what I am doing.  Thanks in advance!

[ Antena/Mast/Ground ]  [ Shack Radio and Power Supply ]

Followup: FYI.. thanks to the NCO of the Monday night BAARC net who suggested a fiberglass pole, rather than a metal one, for my end fed antenna. And for offering to connect me to local people who are knowledgeable on the topic.

Highlight of the month so far has probably been the RCWA burger burn. It was a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with some of the other local hams I have been talking to on air. One crazy story from that event is that I was chatting with KA5OUG and through our conversation we learned that he taught Electronics at Tulsa Vo-Tech (now called Tulsa Technology Center) at the same time I was taking that class as a junior in high school.

Another highlight for the month is I hosted my first net tonight. Thanks to K5CFY for giving me the opportunity to do this and for helping me out with NetLogger. If you are a new ham and have local active nets, I would encourage you to dig into it. It gave me another opportunity to connect with other hams and by the end of that one net, I felt my ability to verbalize callsigns phonetically improved a great deal. It also helped my ability to capture callsigns. This is a particular area where I have been struggling and hosting a net greatly improved that skill for me. I look forward to doing this at least once a week, more when my schedule allows.

This month I have also been experimenting with AREDN. I bought a GL.iNet GL-AR300M16 and a GL-AR300M16-Ext router off Amazon for about $30 each. The process for flashing these with AREDN was pretty simple and getting them setup and talking to each other was pretty simple. It is mostly a curiosity to me as there does not seem to be a big AREDN foot print here in Tulsa, however, maybe I just have not made contact with other .. uh.. ARDENites?

I also finally settled on a mobile radio. I went with the TYT-9800D Plus as it is a quad-band, has a repeater function, and was reviewed favorably in most of my research. I did also get a mobile quad-band antenna but it isn’t working very well at all. I will hold of judgement and naming what I bought as I feel like I am just doing something wrong in it’s assembly/tuning.

I have continued learning morse code. I am using the koch method using an iOS app named Morse Mania. I now know the alphabet and numbers but am still making enough mistakes that I have not moved on to punctuation. We’ll see how things go.

I have also continued to study for my General. I am at the point that I sometimes pass and sometimes fail using the practice exams so I probably have another couple weeks. I have been using Ham Radio Prep and the QRZ practice test tool.

August 2023:

My wife and I got a GMRS mobile unit and a couple handy-talks for our RV trips. That got us interested in getting a ham radio. Earlier this month, I decided to study for and get my Technician license.

I went onto YouTube and found Get Your FIRST Ham Radio License! play list by Ham Radio 2.0, a three-part, roughly twelve-hour playlist. I really appreciate those guys making this available. Coming from a computer background and having some basic knowledge in the electronics space, this video series had me feeling confident about taking the test. I used a testing site they reference in the playlist. After taking a mock-test there a dozen times or so, I started looking at how I could test as soon as possible.

I googled local radio clubs here in Tulsa and ran across the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club. So far, in my short time in ham, I find myself coming back to this site for local information all the time. They have a listing of testing options, not only from them but from many local clubs. The Broken Arrow Amateur Radio Club was testing that weekend, so I emailed them to confirm what I needed and headed there. After passing the test, paying my application fee and getting my callsign, I was excited to get on the air.

I knew I wanted to get into HF and move on to my General license soon, so I ended up settling on a Yaesu FT-991A and their FP-1030A as my base unit for the house. I also picked up a BaoFeng UV-5R handy-talk.

I have been checking in to a lot of local nets to get comfortable talking on the radio and to get to know others in my local area. Probably the most enjoyable net so far was the Fox Hunt discussion on the Friday night Youth at Heart Net [ BAARC’s repeater 147.090 (-) (PL88.5) ] hosted by KB5VDB. My wife likes to read or catch up on her iPad while I am monitoring or talking on the radio. This was her favorite too. Amazing stories of how people have used real-life situations where Fox Hunting skills come into play.

I have my HF antenna ordered and on it’s way. Hopefully between that and learning Morse Code, I will be making CW contacts soon.