Signing on from home

Well in two of the entries in this online journal I have talked about getting on the air for Field Day which is the last weekend in June. Well after years of obstacles, Ifinally have setup a HF station at home. It consists of you guessed it, a dual band HF rig and my HP. I written about PSK-31 in two previous artciles, so I won't go into too much details aboutr that. However I will say knowing that I can jump on for a few hours during the band openings is a good thing> I even made contact from folks out in Minnesota which was a thrill and a half!! It's not always easy roping these contacts in, but it is sure rewarding when I confirm a contact.
One of the extra bonuses is working "Special Event" stations where they give out special certificates when you make contact with them. It's just one of the many thrills of being a ham. After a week o f trying to get them to recognize my call, the answered. So now I have sent away for a certificate that should be here some time in December.
Isaac put up this antenna that just rocks. I got into Cuba, even GERMANY with it!! it's a custom made Off-center fed dipole for all you ham radio geeks out there.
The rest of the setup is pretty basic, I'm using my old power supply I got with my first ham rig. The antenna comes in through a hole in the opposite wall of my desk. We got some connectors together and I'm all set.
For the record I have work eleven states already and am on my way to my Worked All States award. Kind of like getting license plates from every state. Every few days the cards arrive in the mail from all over the country, haven't gotten any from the other side of the Atlantic yet, but these things take time. My mother isn't thrilled about me having more paper in the room.

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