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A little background: I got my Technician license about two years ago, upgraded to General last spring, and I've basically been operating from a corner of my home office that looked like a disaster zone. Radio sitting on a stack of old books, power supply balanced on the edge of the desk, coax running across the floor where I kept tripping over it. My wife was remarkably patient about it, but even I was getting annoyed at myself.

The radio itself is an ICOM IC-7300, which I saved up for over about eight months. Love that radio. But a great radio deserves a decent setup around it, and I kept half-doing things and never finishing. So a few weeks ago I decided to actually commit to a proper shack setup before winter hits and I spend more time indoors on the air.

The Desk Situation

I picked up a used L-shaped desk from Facebook Marketplace for forty bucks. Nothing fancy — it's one of those particleboard IKEA-style things — but it gave me a lot more surface to work with. I put the radio and monitors on the main section and dedicated the shorter return section to logging, my notebook, and my MFJ-993B auto-tuner. Having the tuner off to the side instead of crammed between the radio and the monitor makes a huge difference, both practically and just visually. The desk isn't pretty but it works.

One thing I did that cost almost nothing was run a length of pegboard across the wall above the desk. Picked it up at Home Depot for maybe twelve dollars. Now I have hooks for my headset, a little shelf for my SWR meter, and a spot to hang a dry-erase board where I scribble down frequencies and contest notes. If you've never used pegboard in your shack, seriously consider it. Incredibly flexible.

Power Supply and Cable Management

This was honestly the biggest headache. I'm running an Astron RS-35M, which is a solid supply but it's heavy and bulky. I ended up putting it on a small metal shelf I mounted under the main desk surface, which gets it off the desktop completely and keeps it ventilated. I ran the DC cables up through a grommet hole I cut in the desk. Not perfect, but it keeps things cleaner.

For cable management I used a combination of velcro straps and some plastic cable raceways along the back edge of the desk. Coax goes up through a hole in the wall (finally drilled that properly instead of running it under the window like I was doing before) and out to the antenna feedpoint. All my DC runs are labeled with those little Brady label maker labels. I know that sounds excessive but when you're tracing a problem at 11pm it's really nice to know which cable goes where without having to follow it the whole length.

The Microphone Setup

I'd been using the stock hand mic that came with the 7300 and it's fine, don't get me wrong, but I wanted something hands-free for longer rag chew sessions. I went with an Heil PR-781 on a cheap desk boom arm I found on Amazon. The audio reports I've been getting are noticeably better than with the hand mic, and I can actually sit back in my chair without hunching over to hold the mic up. The boom arm took a little fiddling to get balanced right — the spring tension wasn't great out of the box — but I added a small counterweight I rigged from a couple of large washers tied with paracord and it holds position much better now.

I also finally set up the audio levels properly in the 7300's menus. I had been running a little hot and probably splattering a bit. Got it dialed in with help from a couple of folks on a local repeater who gave me honest signal reports. Appreciate people who actually give real feedback instead of just saying "you sound great, fine business" every single time.

Grounding and RFI — Still a Work in Progress

I want to be honest here: this part isn't done. I have a ground rod outside but I haven't run a proper RF ground strap into the shack yet. I've been getting away with it on HF because my antenna feedline has a decent common mode choke, but I know this needs to get sorted properly before I start experiencing interference issues I can't diagnose. I picked up some copper strap and the hardware I need — it's just sitting in a bag waiting for me to actually do it. Classic ham procrastination, I know.

I did add a decent power strip with surge protection to the shack, and I'm in the habit of unplugging the coax during storms now. Baby steps.

Overall First Impressions

Honestly, I should have done this two years ago. The difference in how much I actually enjoy operating now is pretty significant. When everything has a place and the cables aren't a rat's nest, you spend less time fighting the setup and more time actually making contacts. I got on 40 meters last Sunday evening and worked a station about 1,100 miles out without really trying, just because I sat down and started calling instead of messing around trying to find my logbook under a pile of stuff.

Total cost of the shack reorganization project was somewhere around $150 when I add it all up — the desk, the pegboard, the boom arm, cable management stuff, the shelf brackets. The Heil mic was a separate purchase I'd been planning for a while. So it wasn't totally free but it wasn't outrageous either. A lot of it was just reorganizing what I already had.

If you're in the same place I was — radio sitting on a stack of books, cables everywhere, kind of embarrassed to show anyone a photo of your operating position — I'd say just pick one small piece of it and fix that this weekend. It snowballs pretty quickly once you start.

I'll try to post some actual pictures once I get the cable situation behind the desk looking a little less horrifying. And I'll definitely write something up when I finally get the grounding sorted. Thanks for reading through my first post here — hopefully useful to someone out there who's just getting their shack together.

If you read my post from last month about my first month of learning CW, you know I was pretty frustrated. I was drilling away with the Koch method using the trainer software every single morning before work, usually 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes longer on weekends. I was stuck around 10 words per minute and the characters just weren't sticking the way I wanted them to. I'd hear a V and think "dit dit dit dah" and by the time I'd consciously worked through that in my head, I'd already missed the next two characters. It was exhausting.

My Elmer, a guy I met at our local club's license exam session back when I was studying for my General, kept telling me to stop trying to decode the dits and dahs and just let my brain hear the whole character as a sound. He said it the same way every time we talked about it: "Stop counting. Just listen." I heard him. I understood the concept. I just couldn't make my brain do it.

Then about three weeks ago on a Tuesday morning, I was copying random code groups with the trainer set to 15 wpm character speed and about 10 wpm effective speed — the Farnsworth method spacing — and something was different. I wasn't thinking about the dashes and dots in the letter K. I just... heard K. Same with R. Same with the number 5. I didn't realize what was happening until I looked down at my paper and noticed I'd been copying pretty cleanly for maybe two minutes straight without really trying.

I actually stopped the trainer and just sat there for a second. Then I started it back up because I was afraid to lose whatever had just happened.

It didn't all suddenly become easy after that. Let me be real clear about that. There are still characters that trip me up consistently. Q is one. Y is another. Anything with a bunch of dahs tends to blur together when I'm tired. But something fundamental had shifted. The copying felt less like translating a foreign language and more like just listening. Even a little bit.

I went down to the shack that evening and tuned around 40 meters in the low end where the CW activity is and just listened for a while. I've been doing that regularly actually — just tuning around without trying to copy anything specific, just getting comfortable with the sound of actual on-air CW rather than the clean perfect tones of a software trainer. Real radio CW is messy. There's QRM, there's guys whose timing isn't perfect, there's fading. The trainer didn't really prepare me for that part.

I tried copying a few QSOs and I could get maybe 60 or 70 percent of it on a good signal. Not enough to actually respond to anything, but enough that I felt like I wasn't completely lost. That's genuinely progress from a month ago when I could barely pull out callsigns.

The thing I wish someone had told me earlier — and maybe they did and I just needed to experience it myself — is that the frustration plateau is real and it lasts longer than you want it to. I hit a stretch of about two and a half weeks in week six and seven where I felt like I was actively getting worse. My accuracy was dropping, I was second-guessing characters I had previously nailed, and I was starting to wonder if I was one of those people who just doesn't have the brain for this. My Elmer basically told me that's normal and to just keep going, which is the kind of advice that's both completely right and also kind of annoying to hear when you're in the middle of it.

I've also started supplementing the trainer with the LCWO website, which has some different exercise formats that help break things up. The callsign copying practice there has been particularly useful because callsigns are obviously what I'll be dealing with the most on the air. You get a feel for the rhythm of a typical ham callsign pretty quickly. There's also a feature where you can slow down specific characters that are giving you trouble and drill those individually, which helped me a lot with F and L, which I kept mixing up for an embarrassing amount of time.

One thing I've started doing on weekends when I have more time is copying ARRL code practice transmissions on . They broadcast CW practice at various speeds on a regular schedule and they publish the text afterward so you can check your copy. There's something about copying real transmitted signals with actual propagation effects that the software trainer doesn't give you. Plus it just feels more like ham radio, which helps with motivation when you're grinding through drills.

I set myself a goal of making my first actual CW QSO by the end of this month. That's about two and a half weeks away. I'm nervous about it but I've been practicing a simple exchange — RST, name, QTH — and I think I can get through it if I find someone patient. There are operators out there who specifically look for beginners on certain frequencies and will slow way down. I've been told that QRS (please send slower) is one of the most important things to know how to send, which honestly cracked me up because of course that's critical information.

My Elmer suggested I try making contact during a slower part of the day when experienced operators are more likely to be hunting for any contact and won't mind taking it slow. He also reminded me that I don't have to copy everything perfectly to have a valid QSO. People have been making CW contacts with partial copy for as long as CW has existed. The culture around it is actually pretty forgiving from what I understand.

I'll post an update after I finally pull the trigger on that first CW contact. If it goes anything like my first ever HF contact on voice did, it'll be simultaneously terrifying and one of the most satisfying things I've done in this hobby. And probably a lot shorter than I expect because I'll blank on something obvious and just sign off early out of panic.

That's kind of where I am at the two month mark. Still very much a beginner, still making mistakes, but starting to believe that this is actually going to work. If you're in month one and feeling like you're never going to get it — I hear you. I was you. Keep going.

I got my Technician license about two years ago and then upgraded to General maybe eight months after that. The upgrade was one of those things where I studied for like three weeks straight, convinced myself I was going to fail, and then actually did fine on the test. Classic anxiety spiral for nothing. I've been slowly working toward Extra but honestly life keeps getting in the way and I'm not in a huge rush. Someday.

So what do I actually do on the radio? Honestly it's kind of all over the place right now, which I think is pretty normal when you're still figuring out what part of the hobby you love most. For a long time I mostly just listened. Like, I'd sit at my little desk in the spare bedroom, headphones on, spinning the dial on my HF rig and just trying to understand what I was hearing. Who's calling who, what frequencies are being used for what, why some signals sound so much cleaner than others. There's honestly so much to learn just from listening.

My setup right now is pretty modest. I have a mid-range HF transceiver — nothing fancy, one of the more popular beginner-to-intermediate rigs that gets recommended constantly on the forums — and for an antenna I'm running a random wire that goes out my window, up to the corner of the garage, and then kind of droops down at a sad angle toward the back fence. My husband helped me put it up and he was very patient about me explaining why we needed to drill another hole in the house. He doesn't get the hobby at all but he's supportive, which is all I really need.

The antenna situation is definitely my biggest limitation right now. I've been reading a lot about dipoles and I think my next project is going to be building a simple 40 meter dipole and trying to get it up a bit higher. We have a couple of trees in the backyard that could work as anchor points. I priced out the wire and the center insulator and it's really not that expensive to do, so I don't have a good excuse to keep putting it off. Famous last words, right?

One thing that surprised me about getting into ham radio is how much of the community experience happens in person. I joined my local club about a year ago and it's been genuinely one of the better decisions I've made in this hobby. The meetings are monthly and there's always some kind of presentation or show-and-tell. Last month someone brought in a vintage tube rig they'd been restoring and talked through the whole process. I understood maybe 40% of it but it was still really cool to see. The people in the club range from brand new hams like me to folks who've been licensed for 40+ years. Nobody's made me feel dumb for asking questions, which I was honestly a little worried about before I started showing up.

On the air, I've been doing a bit of SSB on 40 meters in the evenings and some 2 meter stuff on the local repeater. The repeater has a pretty active net on Sunday mornings that I've checked into a few times. It's a low-pressure way to just get comfortable with talking on the radio, because check-ins are structured and you basically just say your callsign and maybe give a weather report or a quick personal update. Nothing scary. I was way more nervous for my first check-in than I needed to be — my voice was shaking a little and I kept second-guessing whether I was holding the mic button down correctly. Completely unnecessary nervousness in hindsight, but I think that's just how it goes.

I've also been dabbling in FT8, which is this digital mode that's become really popular for HF contacts. You run it through your computer with some free software and it handles a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of encoding and decoding the signals. It's kind of a weird mix of completely automated and still requiring you to actually understand what's going on. Some people don't consider it real operating and I get where they're coming from, but for me it's been a great way to see that my station is actually working and making contacts even when band conditions are rough. I made my first contact into Europe on FT8 and literally said "yes!" out loud to an empty room. Small victories.

Something I've been thinking about lately is getting more into emergency communications. The club has a group that works with the county on preparedness stuff and I went to one of their informational meetings a few months back. It seems like meaningful work — like the hobby actually connects to something practical and community-oriented. I haven't committed to joining yet because I want to feel a little more confident as an operator first, but it's definitely on my radar.

I think what I want to use this blog for is just documenting the journey. Not in a "here are 10 tips for new hams" way because honestly I don't feel qualified to give tips yet. More like, here's what I tried this week, here's what confused me, here's the weird little moment that made me glad I got into this hobby. If someone reads it and relates to it, great. If it's mostly just me talking to myself, that's also okay.

One last thing before I wrap up this very rambly first post — if you're reading this and you're also relatively new to ham radio, I just want to say it gets less overwhelming. Or maybe the right thing to say is you get more comfortable with the overwhelming feeling. There's always going to be another mode to try or another antenna design to read about or another piece of gear to consider buying (and then maybe actually buy, no regrets). But that's also kind of what makes it fun. There's no bottom to the rabbit hole and I've made peace with that.

Alright. First post done. That wasn't so bad. I'll try to keep these coming more regularly. No promises though — anyone who's met me knows I'm better at starting things than maintaining consistent schedules. We'll see how this goes.

First thing I had to deal with was a desk. I almost bought one of those cheap particle board computer desks but my husband talked me out of it, which was the right call. We ended up finding a solid-core door at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for twelve dollars. Threw some basic metal legs on it and now I have a desk that's about 30 inches deep and six feet wide. That depth is something I did not know I needed until I had it. There's actually room to spread out the manual, have the radio, a notepad, and a cup of coffee without everything feeling like a Jenga tower.

The radio I'm running right now is an IC-7300. I know, I know, everyone has one, but there's a reason for that — it's just a really solid starter HF radio and it doesn't require a ton of external gear to get on the air. Mine came used from a local club member who was upgrading, and I got it in great shape for a fair price. I've had it about four months and I'm still honestly learning what all the menus do. The built-in tuner is handy but it has limits, and I've been debating whether I need an external tuner depending on how my antenna situation evolves.

Speaking of which, the antenna feed comes in through a hole I drilled in the exterior wall, which felt terrifying to do but was actually fine. I've got a bulkhead PL-259 connector mounted there with a little weatherproofing around the outside. Right now I'm running a used LDG Z-11 Pro II autotuner between the feedline and the radio, mostly because my end-fed wire out back is not exactly resonant on everything and the IC-7300's internal tuner sometimes won't commit to a match on 40 meters with the way I have things set up. The LDG handles it without drama.

Power supply is a Powerwerx SS-30DV. I did a lot of reading before buying one and the main advice I kept seeing was don't cheap out on the power supply. So I didn't. It's quiet, it's clean, no RF noise issues so far. It sits on a small shelf I put together out of some leftover lumber, off to the right side of the desk where I don't have to look at it but can easily reach the knobs.

Cable management is where things get real embarrassing real fast. I have a partial solution involving velcro ties and a surge strip mounted to the back of the desk, but there's still kind of a nest of coax and USB cables behind the radio that I try not to look at directly. The USB goes to my laptop for logging and digital modes. I use for contesting when I get brave enough, and WSJT-X for FT8, which was the first digital mode I tried and the one that made me understand why people talk about it constantly. It's genuinely wild to work stations in Europe at two in the morning with like 30 watts.

Microphone situation is still evolving. The radio came with the HM-219 hand mic, which is fine, it works. But I picked up a used Heil PR-781 desktop mic at a hamfest a few weeks ago and I've been slowly figuring out how to get my audio set up the way I want it. I've gotten some good signal reports and some reports that I sounded "a little bassy" which I'm still tweaking. Audio is one of those things I didn't realize would have so much to it. There's a whole world of mic gain settings, speech compression levels, and passband adjustments that I'm just beginning to understand.

One thing I did that I'm really glad about was buying a small label maker and labeling all my connectors and cables. Sounds incredibly boring but the first time I had to trace something at 11pm I was very grateful to past-me. Each cable coming into the back of the radio has a little label. Each outlet on the surge strip is labeled. It took about twenty minutes and it has saved me time and frustration multiple times already.

Grounding is my current obsession and honestly my current anxiety. I've run a short ground wire from the radio chassis to a dedicated ground rod I had put in outside the shack wall, and there's a bulkhead panel where the feedline comes in that has its own connection to the same rod. But I've been reading more about station grounding and bonding and I'm starting to think I need to do a bit more work there. The stuff about RF ground versus safety ground and how they're different things — I'm still wrapping my head around it. It's one of those topics where you think you understand it and then you read more and realize you only understood part of it.

I've also got a small whiteboard on the wall where I jot down frequencies, things I want to try, reminders about contests coming up. Low tech but it's been useful. There's a clock next to it set to UTC because I spent the first two months being confused about time zones and logging and I decided a dedicated UTC clock was just worth having.

The shack is still not done, maybe it never will be, and that's kind of how I've come to think about it. Every time I get one thing sorted out I find three more things I want to improve or change or add. But compared to the kitchen table situation this feels like a legitimate station, and when I sit down and turn the radio on and start spinning the dial, it feels like the right kind of hobby.

If you're setting up your own first shack and want to swap notes, I'd genuinely love to hear what you're doing. I'm figuring this all out as I go and other people's practical experience has been way more useful to me than any single guide or manual.

Why an EFHW?

Apartment living means I don't have a lot of options. I've got a small balcony and access to a fence post about 40 feet away that I can probably throw a line over. The end-fed half wave appealed to me because you only need one support point at the far end — the other end feeds directly into the transformer at the radio end, so I could mount that near the shack and run coax inside. No need to run the actual antenna wire through a window or anything weird. At least that was the theory.

The core of an EFHW transformer is basically a 49:1 impedance transformer wound on a ferrite toroid. The end-fed half wave antenna presents something in the neighborhood of 2450 ohms at its feed point, and you want to bring that down to 50 ohms to match your coax and radio. The 49:1 ratio does that — 49 times 50 is 2450. That part actually made sense to me once I sat down and thought it through.

Parts and First Attempt

I ordered a couple of FT-140-43 toroids off of an online supplier. The -43 material is what most of the builds I saw recommended for HF frequencies, especially the lower bands. I also grabbed some 26 AWG magnet wire from a local electronics shop — I probably could have gone heavier but that's what they had in stock.

The winding I went with was 3 turns primary and 21 turns secondary, which gives you that 7:1 turns ratio (and 7 squared is 49, so there's your impedance ratio). I followed a diagram I found that showed the primary going right at one end of the core, then the secondary wound over essentially the whole toroid. I also added a 100 pF silver mica capacitor across the primary based on some recommendations I saw — supposedly it helps with matching on the higher bands.

First attempt at winding it went okay but my secondary turns were really uneven and I could tell just looking at it that they weren't spaced well. I also nicked the enamel on a couple of the magnet wire turns with my fingernail while pulling the wire through. Scraped the ends off with sandpaper, soldered it up, and put it in a small weatherproof enclosure I got at the hardware store.

Testing — The Humbling Part

I hooked up a temporary wire I cut for 40 meters — about 66 feet for a half wave. Draped it out the balcony as best I could, thrown over a string line to the fence post. Nothing fancy, lots of sag in the middle. Connected my cheap nanoVNA to the coax port of the transformer and did a sweep.

It was not great. I was seeing an SWR of around 3.5:1 at 7.2 MHz. Definitely not 1:1 and my radio's internal tuner was struggling with it. I posted on a forum and somebody immediately asked if I had a counterpoise. I did not. I had completely forgotten about the counterpoise. End-fed antennas need something to push against — the common solution is a short wire connected to the ground terminal of the transformer, usually around 0.05 wavelength long, so about 6-7 feet for 40 meters.

I added an 8-foot wire to the ground lug of the enclosure, just let it hang down off the balcony. Swept it again on the nanoVNA. SWR dropped to about 1.4:1 right at 7.150 MHz. That I can work with. My radio's built-in tuner brought it right down to 1:1 and I was on the air.

On the Air Results

Made my first contact with the new antenna on 40 meters a couple evenings after I finished it. Worked a station about 600 miles away running 50 watts and got a solid 57 signal report. Not earth-shattering but way better than the cookie sheet whip setup. On 80 meters it's a bit rougher — I'm running it as a non-resonant wire on 80 with the tuner doing more work, and I can tell the transformer gets a little warm after longer transmissions. I'm keeping key-down time short for now.

I did notice some RF in the shack — the kind where you touch the radio and get a little tingle, or the audio gets a weird buzz on transmit. I think I need to add a common mode choke on the coax, which I haven't done yet. That's my next project. Probably 8-10 turns of the coax through another toroid right at the transformer output.

What I'd Do Differently

Honestly, not a ton. The core build was pretty straightforward once I accepted I might have to rewind it. I'd probably use slightly heavier wire next time — the 26 AWG feels fragile when you're winding it around the toroid. I'd also drill the enclosure holes before winding the transformer, not after, because I cracked the lid a little trying to drill near the PL-259 connector hole.

The counterpoise thing was a dumb oversight on my part. Read the instructions, people. Or in this case, read all of the forum posts, not just the winding diagrams.

Total cost was around $25 for the toroids and wire, maybe $8 for the enclosure, and I already had coax and connectors sitting around. Way cheaper than buying a commercial EFHW transformer, and I actually understand how it works now, which feels like kind of a big deal to me honestly.

If you're newer like me and thinking about trying this, I'd say go for it. The math is accessible, the winding is tedious but not hard, and there's a ton of help online. Just remember your counterpoise. Don't be me.

I'll probably post an update once I get the choke sorted out and do some more testing on the higher bands. 73 and thanks for reading.

That changed about six weeks ago and I'm still kind of processing it, which is part of why I wanted to write this down somewhere.

I'd been watching the propagation forecasts more seriously over the past couple months. I downloaded a couple of apps, started checking the solar flux index every morning like some people check the weather, and generally started paying attention to what the bands were actually doing rather than just tuning around and wondering why I wasn't hearing much. The SFI had been sitting in the low 150s for a stretch there and a friend from my local club kept saying that 17 meters and 15 meters should be producing something interesting in the afternoons. He was right, I just hadn't actually sat down and committed time to listening.

So one Saturday I cleared my afternoon. Nothing on the calendar, coffee made, radio warmed up. I'm running a mid-tier transceiver — nothing exotic — into a fan dipole strung between my house and a tree maybe 40 feet away at the high point. It's not a beautiful antenna but I built it myself and I've been pretty happy with how it loads up. I use a small tuner to clean things up on bands where the match isn't great.

I started on 17 meters, around 18.130 MHz give or take, just listening. And it was there. Signals I couldn't identify, pile-ups happening, people calling and calling. I tuned around slowly and started picking out accents and suffixes I didn't recognize. A station in what sounded like southern Europe was running a small pile-up and I just listened for a while, trying to figure out the rhythm of how he was working stations. That's something nobody really told me early on — that listening is a skill and it matters as much as transmitting. Watching how an operator manages a pile-up, how they use split frequency, how they give signal reports, all of that is an education by itself.

After maybe twenty minutes of listening I figured I understood what was happening well enough to try. I tuned my VFO B up a couple kilohertz from where he was transmitting, set my power to about 75 watts — I didn't want to just blast at full power when I'm still figuring this out — and waited for a gap. I called once. Nothing. Called again a minute later. Nothing. Third time I got a partial, he came back with what might have been part of my call but I wasn't sure so I didn't respond. Fourth attempt he came back clean with my full callsign and a signal report.

I gave him his report, he confirmed, and that was it. Contact made. The whole exchange was maybe fifteen seconds.

I sat back and just stared at the radio for a second. I checked the map on my logging software and saw the distance. Somewhere around 5,400 miles. From my backyard fan dipole. On 75 watts. On a random Saturday afternoon.

I know that for a lot of the experienced operators reading this, that's not exactly front page news. People work DX all the time, DXpeditions pull in thousands of contacts in a weekend, some folks have confirmed entities on every continent multiple times over. I get it. But for me, standing at that starting line, it genuinely rearranged something in my head about what this hobby is and what's actually possible.

The propagation angle is what really grabbed me though. I went back and looked at what the conditions had been doing that day. The SFI was up a little, K-index was sitting at 1 which is nice and quiet geomagnetically, and there'd been some good solar activity earlier in the week that seemed to have charged things up without causing a storm. The opening on 17 meters was well-timed — mid-afternoon on my end, evening in Europe, and the path was apparently in good shape. It all lined up.

What I didn't appreciate before was how fleeting that can be. I went back the next afternoon to try again and 17 meters was a ghost town. Checked the K-index and it had bumped up to 4, which isn't a full storm but it was enough to knock things back. The same frequency that had been wall-to-wall signals the day before was just hiss and a faint carrier somewhere far off. That's the thing about HF — it rewards you when the conditions are right and completely humbles you when they're not, and you don't always get to choose which one you're getting on any given day.

I've been spending a lot more time on 15 and 17 meters since then. I even took a shot at 10 meters last weekend when someone in a Facebook group said there was an opening. I heard a few signals but couldn't pull off a contact — my antenna probably isn't optimized for 10 and I'd need to rethink the feedline situation to really take advantage up there. That's a project for later in the year.

For now I'm just trying to log more contacts, get better at reading the conditions, and learn how to work a pile-up a little more gracefully. I fumbled around a lot before I made that first DX contact. Transmitted on the wrong VFO once, called when another station was finishing up their exchange which was embarrassing, forgot to write down the time in UTC until after I'd already clicked over to another frequency. Small stuff but it adds up and I want to get the mechanics cleaner.

If you're in a similar spot — general ticket, HF capable radio, modest antenna, not sure if you can actually work DX — I'd say just start listening. Seriously. Put on headphones, tune slowly across 17 or 15 meters on a quiet afternoon, and pay attention to what's happening. Watch the propagation data even if you don't fully understand it yet. And when conditions look good and you hear a pile-up you want to join, give it a shot. It took me four tries to break through on that first contact and the whole thing lasted fifteen seconds but I'm still thinking about it six weeks later.

I'll try to post more as I figure things out. Not sure how regularly, but this felt worth writing down.

The final straw was when I started noticing my signal reports on 20m were consistently a little soft. Not terrible, but guys on the other end would say things like "you're Q5 but a bit down compared to others." And I knew my antenna was decent. I'd modeled it, I'd trimmed it, the SWR at the radio was reasonable. But something felt off and I kept coming back to that sad, weathered collection of coax running from my shack window out to the fence post and up to the antenna.

So I finally ordered a 100-foot roll of LMR-400 from a supplier I trust, a couple of PL-259 connectors rated for LMR-400, and a proper weatherproofing kit with self-amalgamating tape. Total came out to around $95 which, yeah, stings a little, but honestly I should have done this from the start instead of piecing things together.

The Old Coax Was Worse Than I Thought

Before I even started installing the new stuff, I cut open the end of that old RG-8X section near the barrel connector. The braid was greenish. Not like a little tarnish — actually corroded green in spots. And the center conductor had some discoloration too. I have no idea how long that coax had been sitting outside before I got it at the hamfest, but clearly it had seen better days. Water had definitely gotten in somewhere along the run. Lesson thoroughly learned: don't buy unmarked coax at hamfests unless you're absolutely sure what you're getting and plan to test it properly.

I checked the barrel connector too and found one of the center pin connections was barely making contact. Honestly the whole thing was one good rain away from completely failing. It's a little embarrassing to admit because I know better, but sometimes you just want to get on the air and you tell yourself you'll fix it "later."

Installing the LMR-400

LMR-400 is noticeably stiffer than RG-8X, which took some getting used to. Running it around corners and through the window feedthrough required a little more patience. I used a standard oval feedthrough plate that I'd installed when I built the dipole — gave myself about 2 inches of clearance so the coax could make a gentle bend rather than a sharp one. You don't want to kink LMR-400, it doesn't forgive you the way smaller coax does.

Putting on the PL-259 connectors for LMR-400 is a little different than for smaller cable. I used the solder type connectors, not crimp. There's a specific adapter/reducer that goes with LMR-400 and you have to prep the cable really carefully — strip the jacket back the right amount, fold the braid back cleanly, make sure the center conductor is long enough but not too long. I watched probably four different YouTube videos on this before I felt confident, and I still did a practice run on a scrap piece of coax first. My first attempt was okay but the solder on the center pin wasn't quite right so I redid it. The second one came out clean.

I ran the whole 100 feet as a single unbroken piece, which was the whole point. No barrel connectors, no splices, nothing. Zip-tied it along the fence with UV-resistant ties at about 18-inch intervals and gave it a drip loop before it enters the feedthrough. Then wrapped both ends — the connector at the antenna feedpoint and the connector at the feedthrough — with self-amalgamating tape. That stuff is genuinely great. It fuses to itself and makes a completely waterproof seal. I've had regular electrical tape fail on outdoor connectors before, so I don't mess around anymore.

The Results Were Actually Kind of Exciting

First thing I did after hooking everything up was run through the bands with an antenna analyzer. SWR curves looked essentially the same as before, which was expected — the antenna didn't change. But then I got on 20m and started listening around. I noticed the noise floor seemed slightly better, which could be placebo, could be real. Hard to quantify on receive.

On transmit though, I got a few signal reports within an hour of getting back on the air and three out of four of those contacts mentioned my signal was solid. One guy in Colorado said I was "full quieting" which was really satisfying to hear because he's someone I've worked before and I know he gives honest reports. I can't say with scientific certainty exactly how many dB I recovered by fixing the feed line, but the line loss difference between beat-up RG-8X with a bad connector versus clean LMR-400 over 100 feet is probably somewhere around 1.5 to 2 dB at 14 MHz. Not earth-shattering, but real.

What I'd Do Differently

If I'm being honest, I'd have bought good coax from day one. I know LMR-400 is pricier but over a 100-foot run to an HF antenna it's worth it. The price per foot sounds scary but you're not doing this every year if you do it right the first time. I'd also invest in a proper coax seal product earlier rather than hoping electrical tape would hold up.

One other thing — I'm going to start keeping a short log of my coax runs, what type, when installed, connector type at each end, and any weatherproofing applied. Nothing fancy, just a notepad file. That way if I'm troubleshooting in two years I don't have to try to remember whether that outdoor connector was properly sealed or not.

Anyway, if you've got a gnarly feed line situation you've been ignoring, take this as your sign to deal with it. It's not glamorous work and there's no big dramatic moment like hoisting up a new antenna, but a clean feed line is kind of the foundation everything else depends on. My 40m dipole and the 20m vertical both deserve better than what I was feeding them through, and now they've got it.

Next project is probably going to be proper grounding and bonding at the station entry point. I've got a ground rod but the bonding between it and the shack panel is not great. That'll be its own adventure.

The park I chose is a small state recreation area, nothing dramatic, but it qualified for the Parks on the Air program and more importantly it's close enough that if everything went wrong I wasn't stranded somewhere two hours from home. I pulled into the parking lot around nine in the morning thinking I'd have plenty of time to get set up before the bands got too noisy.

What I Brought (And What I Forgot)

My radio for this was a Xiegu G90 running at 20 watts. I know a lot of POTA folks go full QRP at 5 watts but I wanted a little more margin on my first outing. My antenna was a 40 meter end-fed half-wave that I bought as a kit and soldered up myself a few weeks ago. I'd tested it in the backyard and it seemed to work, SWR was reasonable on 40 and okay-ish on 20. I brought a 12 amp-hour lithium battery pack, a little antenna analyzer, coax, a notepad for paper logging because I didn't want to deal with a laptop outdoors yet, and way too many granola bars.

What I forgot: my coax adapter. I had the antenna's BNC connector and the radio's SO-239 and nothing to connect them. Stood there in the parking lot staring at my gear bag for a solid two minutes feeling like a complete idiot. Fortunately I had a short patch cable with PL-259 on both ends that I'd thrown in as an afterthought, and I had a barrel connector in a little bag of miscellaneous hardware I keep in my car. It was awkward but it worked. Lesson one: make a checklist and actually use it.

Getting the Antenna Up

I'd planned to do a sloper, running the end-fed up at an angle from a tripod to a tree branch. The trees at this particular picnic area were not cooperating. First branch I could reach was maybe twelve feet up and the tree was weirdly positioned relative to where I wanted to set up. I ended up doing more of an inverted-V shape, sort of, with one end up on the tripod at about ten feet and the other end tied to a low branch. It was not elegant. The counterpoise wire was just laying on the ground which I've since read is actually fine for this type of antenna, so at least that part I didn't overthink.

Getting the analyzer readings wasn't terrible. SWR was around 1.8 on 40 meters at the resonant point, which the G90's internal tuner handled without complaint. On 20 meters it was uglier but still matchable. I called it good enough and started operating.

The Operating Part

I'd decided to call CQ on 40 meters first since it was still morning and 20 might be better later. I picked a frequency around 7.245 MHz, listened for a couple minutes to make sure it was clear, and started calling. Nothing for about three minutes. I moved up a bit and tried again. Still nothing for a couple minutes, and then someone came back to me and honestly I got so flustered I fumbled my exchange. They were patient and we got through it. First contact logged. I may have done a small fist pump right there at the picnic table.

After that things got a bit easier. I ended up with eleven contacts on 40 meters over about an hour and a half. A few hunters were clearly just running through activations quickly which I appreciated because they were efficient and easy to work. A couple of people wanted to chat a little which was also nice, and one person asked how my antenna was working which led to a genuinely useful two-minute conversation about end-fed antennas.

I switched to 20 meters around eleven and got four more contacts, including one station that was quite far away geographically, which was exciting. Total for the day was fifteen contacts which is one more than the ten you need to count as a successful activation. I realize fifteen is not impressive by the standards of experienced activators who routinely log forty or fifty contacts in an outing, but for me it felt like a genuine accomplishment.

Things I Would Do Differently

The checklist thing I already mentioned. Beyond that, I'd bring a taller support for the antenna. Ten feet is pretty low and I think I lost some efficiency there. I've been looking at the lightweight mast options, the fiberglass push-up poles, and I think even a 20 or 25 foot mast would make a real difference. I'd also spot myself on the POTA website next time. I didn't do it this time because I was nervous and didn't want people to show up expecting a competent operator, but honestly the spotting system exists for a reason and it would have helped me get contacts faster.

I also should have brought something better to sit on. The picnic table bench was fine but after ninety minutes my back was not happy. Some of those activators I see in photos have these little camp chairs that look much more reasonable.

Would I Do It Again

Yes, immediately, already planning the next one. There's something really satisfying about making contacts from a field setup that feels different from working from the shack. Maybe it's that you solved a bunch of small problems to make it happen. Maybe it's being outside. Probably both.

I'm also thinking about trying to learn CW eventually so I can work the CW segments where there seems to be a lot of POTA activity, but that feels like a longer-term project. For now I'm going to keep doing SSB activations and try to get a little better at the process each time.

If you're on the fence about doing your first activation, I'd genuinely say just go do it. You will forget something. Something won't work quite right. You'll work through it and you'll learn more in that one morning than you would from a month of reading about it. Or at least that's how it was for me.

Thanks to everyone who came back to my calls last Saturday. You have no idea how much it meant to a very nervous first-timer.

I made my first real DX contact. Like, not just a domestic contact that happens to be far away. An actual across-the-ocean, different-continent, holy-cow-did-that-just-happen contact. I'm still kind of buzzing about it.

The Setup (Such As It Is)

I should explain what I'm working with so this makes sense. My station is pretty modest. I've got a used mid-range HF transceiver that I picked up locally, running about 80 watts, and my antenna is a 40-meter dipole that I hung between two trees in my backyard. It's not fancy. One end is a little lower than I'd like because the tree on that side isn't as tall, so it's kind of a slanted dipole situation, which I've read is fine but I'm never totally sure how much it affects things. I also have a simple random wire that I've been experimenting with on 20 meters but the feedline situation is messy and I keep meaning to fix it.

My noise floor is not great either. I live in a suburban neighborhood and there's some kind of switching power supply or LED driver nearby that puts a hash on certain parts of the bands. I've learned to live with it mostly.

What Actually Happened

So I'd been casually checking 20 meters in the evenings after work. I know that 20 meters is supposed to be the workhorse DX band, and I'd been reading about how propagation was improving as we move deeper into Solar Cycle 25. The solar flux numbers have been higher lately and I'd been watching the DX cluster on my laptop while listening, just trying to learn what good propagation actually sounds like.

Last Tuesday around 7pm local time I tuned across 14.200 and something was different. The band sounded alive in a way I hadn't really experienced before. Signals were just cleaner, stronger, with that kind of presence where you can tell something is working right. I noticed a pile-up happening a bit further up and spun over to listen. Somebody was working a station in Europe — I caught the exchange enough to understand what was going on — and the European station's signal was honestly just remarkable. S7, S8 at times, coming in clear and full sounding.

I sat there for probably twenty minutes just listening. The pile-up thinned out eventually and I thought, okay, this is the moment. I'm going to try.

I waited for a gap, called once, and nothing. Called again. And then — I heard my suffix come back through the noise. He was asking for the full callsign. I gave it. He came back with a full exchange. Signal report and everything. I almost knocked my microphone off the desk.

The whole QSO was maybe ninety seconds. But it was real.

What I Learned (And Got Wrong)

Here's the thing though. I almost missed the opening entirely because I didn't understand what I was looking at propagation-wise. I'd been checking the bands earlier that afternoon around 3pm and 20 meters seemed pretty flat to me — I was hearing some domestic stuff but nothing exciting. I almost didn't bother going back.

What I didn't fully appreciate until I started reading more afterward is how different the band can sound at different times of day depending on where you're trying to reach. Transatlantic paths on 20 meters in my part of the country tend to open up in the late afternoon and into the evening, when the gray line and the ionosphere geometry are working in your favor. Checking at 3pm and giving up was almost a mistake that cost me the opening.

I also didn't understand the solar flux index as well as I thought. I'd seen people talking about SFI numbers online but I was treating it kind of abstractly. Now I actually check it every day on one of the propagation sites. That week the SFI was up in the 180s which is pretty high, and there was low geomagnetic activity — the K-index was sitting at 1 or 2. I've since learned that combination is basically the recipe for good DX, especially on the higher HF bands. High flux, quiet magnetics. Simple enough, but nobody really spelled it out for me before. I had to kind of piece it together from forum posts and YouTube videos.

The other thing I got humbled by: I tried again the next evening thinking lightning would strike twice. The SFI had dropped a little and the K-index had crept up to 3. Twenty meters was there but it wasn't the same. I heard Europe but weakly, and I didn't manage to get through any pile-ups. It was a good reminder that propagation is a moving target and you can't just bank on yesterday's conditions.

Things I Want to Try Next

I really want to try 17 meters now. From what I've been reading, 17 is kind of like 20's quieter cousin — less crowded, often good propagation during the same conditions, and because it's a WARC band there are no contests allowed so the pace is more relaxed. That feels more my speed while I'm still getting comfortable with DX operating.

I've also been thinking about 15 meters. When the flux is high like it has been lately, 15 can apparently open up really well, and paths to Asia and the Pacific are possible in ways that 20 meters doesn't always offer from my location. I need to do more reading on that.

And honestly I need to fix my antenna situation. A better dipole, maybe a fan dipole so I can cover multiple bands without retuning constantly, would make this all a lot less friction-y. Right now switching bands feels like a project. I want it to feel easy.

Wrapping Up

I know this is kind of a rambling first post. I mostly wanted to write it down while it was still fresh. If you're reading this and you're also newer to HF and feeling like DX is this intimidating mysterious thing — it kind of is, but it's also more accessible than I thought. Watch the propagation numbers, learn what the bands sound like when they're open versus when they're dead, and just actually transmit. That last part was the hardest for me.

More to come when I have something worth sharing. Thanks for reading.

I've been licensed for about eight months now, and up until last weekend I was using one of those multi-band verticals with a tuner. It worked okay for getting started, but 40 meters was always frustrating. I could hear the big guns coming through, but getting anyone to hear me back was hit or miss. The antenna was mounted on my deck railing about 12 feet up, which I know isn't ideal, but it was what I could manage in my HOA neighborhood.

Planning the Inverted V

After reading through the antenna handbook and watching way too many YouTube videos, I settled on an inverted V as my first wire antenna project. The theory seemed straightforward enough - basically a dipole bent down at an angle to fit in a smaller space. My backyard isn't huge, maybe 120 feet deep, so the inverted V seemed like a good compromise between performance and space requirements.

For the center frequency, I aimed for 7.200 MHz since that's where I spend most of my time on 40 meters. Using the standard formula, that put my half-wave length at about 66 feet total, or 33 feet per leg. I decided to cut it a bit long and trim as needed - always easier to cut wire than to add it back.

The biggest challenge was the support structure. I don't have any really tall trees in the right spots, so I ended up buying a 33-foot telescoping fiberglass mast from one of the ham vendors online. Not cheap, but I figured it was an investment in better performance. I set it up in the corner of my backyard where it's partially hidden by some bushes.

Construction Details

For the wire itself, I used 14 AWG stranded THHN wire from the hardware store. Some folks swear by antenna wire, but from what I read, regular house wire works fine and costs a lot less. I stripped about an inch off each end and soldered them to a center insulator I made from a piece of phenolic board I had lying around from an old electronics project.

The feedpoint was the part I was most nervous about. I used a 1:1 current balun - just a simple ugly balun made with about six turns of RG-8X coiled up and secured with zip ties. I know there are fancier commercial baluns out there, but I wanted to keep the cost down and see how this simple approach worked.

Getting the antenna up was definitely a two-person job. My neighbor helped me raise the mast while I guided the coax and guy wires. I secured the mast with three guy wires at the 20-foot level, using some landscaping stakes I drove into the ground. The antenna legs slope down at about a 45-degree angle to insulators tied off to fence posts on either side of the yard.

Initial Testing and Tuning

Once everything was up, I fired up my antenna analyzer to see what I had. The initial SWR curve showed resonance at about 6.9 MHz - a bit low, as expected. I trimmed about 18 inches off each leg and checked again. Still a little low. After three more trimming sessions, I got it centered right around 7.2 MHz with an SWR of 1.3:1 at resonance.

The bandwidth was pretty good - SWR stayed under 2:1 from about 7.0 to 7.3 MHz, which covers most of where I operate. I can tune the rest of the band with my internal tuner without any problems.

What really surprised me was how much quieter the receive was compared to my vertical. That antenna picked up every bit of noise from the house electronics, LED lights, and who knows what else. The inverted V is so much cleaner on receive. I can actually hear weak signals that were completely buried in the noise before.

On-Air Results

The proof was in the pudding when I got on the air that first evening. I called CQ and immediately had three stations come back to me - all giving me 59 reports. With the vertical, I was lucky to get 57 reports and often had to repeat my call multiple times. The difference was dramatic.

Over the past few weeks, I've worked all across the US and into Canada on 40 meters with just 100 watts. Last weekend I even managed a contact with a station in Italy during a contest - something that never would have happened with my old setup. The antenna seems to have a nice low angle of radiation that's great for DX.

One thing I noticed is that the pattern seems to favor the northeast-southwest direction, which makes sense given the orientation of the wire. I can work the east and west coasts really well, but stations to the north and south sometimes seem a bit weaker. That's the trade-off with a directional antenna, but overall I'm thrilled with the performance improvement.

Lessons Learned

If I were doing this project over again, I'd probably invest in a better antenna analyzer from the start. I was borrowing one from a club member, which meant I had to do all my trimming and testing in one afternoon. Having my own would let me fine-tune things over time.

I also wish I'd planned the guy wire anchors better. I ended up with the stakes closer to the house than I'd like, and one of them is right in the middle of where my wife wants to plant flowers this spring. I may need to relocate that one before I get in trouble.

The biggest lesson though is that antennas really do make all the difference. I spent months struggling with mediocre contacts, thinking it was just the way 40 meters was. Turns out I just needed to get some wire up in the air properly. This project has me motivated to try an 80-meter dipole next - if I can figure out where to put 130 feet of wire!

For anyone thinking about their first wire antenna, I'd definitely recommend starting with an inverted V. The performance improvement over a compromise vertical was huge, and the project wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be. Just take your time with the planning and don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

The FT-891 arrived yesterday and I spent most of the evening getting it set up. I have to say, coming from the simple world of VHF/UHF repeaters, this thing is pretty intimidating! So many buttons, menus, and settings. The manual is thick enough to use as a doorstop.

Why I Chose the FT-891

I went back and forth between several radios for weeks. The IC-7300 kept coming up in reviews as the gold standard for new HF operators, but honestly it was just out of my budget range. The FT-891 seemed like a good compromise - it has most of the modern features I wanted like a waterfall display and decent built-in antenna tuner, but at a price point I could actually afford.

I also liked that it's compact. My shack is really just a corner of my bedroom right now, so space is at a premium. The 891 fits nicely on my small desk without taking over the whole area.

Setting It Up

The unboxing was exciting, but then reality hit when I realized I needed to figure out how to actually connect everything. The radio came with a basic DC power cable, but I needed to get a proper power supply. After reading some forums, I ended up getting an Astron RS-35M. It's probably overkill for this radio, but I figured it would give me room to grow.

Getting the power supply wired up was straightforward enough - red to positive, black to negative, nothing too scary there. The manual recommends heavy gauge wire for the DC connection, so I used 12 AWG which seems to work fine.

The antenna situation is still a work in progress. Right now I have a simple wire dipole cut for 20 meters stretched between my house and a tree in the backyard. It's not pretty and it's definitely not optimal, but it's what I can do in my current living situation. The built-in tuner in the 891 seems to handle it okay, though I know I'm probably not getting the best performance.

First Impressions

The display is really nice compared to older radios I've seen at the club. The waterfall display actually helps me understand what's happening on the band in a way that just listening never did. I can see the signals visually and it makes tuning around much more intuitive.

The audio quality through the built-in speaker is decent, though I've been using headphones most of the time since I'm operating in the bedroom and don't want to disturb anyone. The headphone jack is conveniently located on the front panel.

One thing that's taking some getting used to is all the menu options. There are so many settings to tweak! I'm trying not to go overboard and change everything at once, but it's tempting. The noise reduction features are pretty impressive - much better than I expected from a radio in this price range.

Making My First HF Contacts

Last night I finally worked up the courage to make my first HF contact. I'd been listening for a few days getting comfortable with the bands, but actually transmitting felt like a big step. I found a station in Texas calling CQ on 20 meters and managed to work him without too much trouble. He was running high power and had a great signal, so it wasn't exactly a challenging contact, but it felt amazing to actually talk to someone hundreds of miles away with my own equipment.

This morning I got up early and caught some interesting DX on 40 meters. I didn't try to work anyone since I'm still not confident with my operating procedures, but just listening to stations from different countries was fascinating. The propagation seems much different from what I'm used to on VHF.

Things I'm Still Learning

The antenna tuner is something I need to understand better. It seems to tune up fine on most frequencies, but I'm not really sure when I should and shouldn't use it. I've been reading about SWR and impedance matching, but there's definitely a lot more to learn there.

Band planning is another area where I feel like a beginner again. On VHF it's pretty straightforward - repeaters are here, simplex is there. But HF has all these different sub-bands for different license classes and different activities. I bought the ARRL band plan chart to tape up next to the radio, which helps.

I also want to get into digital modes eventually. The 891 has a USB port that's supposed to make computer interfacing easier, but I haven't tackled that yet. One thing at a time!

Next Steps

My immediate priority is improving my antenna situation. The wire dipole works, but I'd like something more permanent and efficient. I'm thinking about trying a fan dipole that would cover multiple bands, or maybe looking into a vertical antenna that would fit better in my small yard.

I also want to join in on some of the nets I've been hearing. There's a local emergency net that meets twice a week, and it seems like good practice for improving my operating skills in a friendly environment.

Overall, I'm really happy with the FT-891 so far. It feels like a big step up from my previous equipment, and I'm excited to explore what HF has to offer. The learning curve is steep, but that's part of what makes this hobby interesting. Every contact teaches me something new.

If anyone has tips for a new HF operator or suggestions for getting the most out of this radio, I'd love to hear them!

I picked a local state park about 45 minutes from home that I knew would be mostly empty on a cold February weekday. The temperature was hovering around 28 degrees, but I figured that would just make it more authentic, right? Famous last words.

The Setup

My portable kit is pretty basic - a 20-watt QRP transceiver, a 29-foot end-fed half wave antenna, and a small 7Ah sealed lead acid battery. I also brought along a folding table, a camp chair, and what I thought was adequate cold weather gear. The antenna support was going to be a 20-foot telescoping fiberglass pole that I'd been wanting to test out.

Getting to the park was easy enough, and I found a nice spot near the picnic area with some trees for antenna support. That's when reality started setting in. First lesson learned: those little plastic clips that come with telescoping poles? They don't work so well when your fingers are numb from the cold. I spent about 15 minutes fumbling around trying to get the sections locked in place while wearing gloves.

The antenna went up easier than expected once I got the pole situation sorted out. I tied off one end to a picnic table and used the pole to get the other end up about 18 feet. Not perfect, but it looked reasonable. The counterpoise wires just laid on the frozen ground.

First Contact Jitters

Once everything was connected and I'd done a quick SWR check (thankfully it was under 2:1 across 20 meters), it was time to try making some contacts. I tuned around 20 meters looking for a good frequency and found a quiet spot around 14.255. Then came the moment of truth - calling CQ for the first time in the field.

"CQ Parks on the Air, CQ POTA" felt strange coming out of my mouth, but within about 30 seconds I had my first response. A station from Tennessee came back to me with a solid 5-7 signal report. I was so excited I nearly fumbled the exchange, but managed to get his info logged properly. One down, nine to go for a valid activation.

The next hour was a blur of contacts. I worked stations from all over the east coast and even got a few from the midwest. The little QRP rig was performing better than I expected, and most stations were giving me solid copy reports. I was starting to feel pretty confident about this whole POTA thing.

When Things Go Sideways

About 90 minutes in, just as I was working my 12th contact, disaster struck. A gust of wind caught the antenna pole and sent it crashing down. The antenna wire got tangled in some nearby bushes, and I could see one of the connector crimps had pulled loose.

This is where being prepared really matters, and honestly, I wasn't as ready as I thought. I had brought a small toolkit, but trying to re-crimp a PL-259 connector in near-freezing weather with numb fingers turned out to be way harder than doing it comfortably at my home workbench.

It took me about 20 minutes to get everything sorted out and the antenna back up. During that time, I learned another valuable lesson: bring backup connectors and maybe even a backup antenna. Several stations had been calling me when the antenna went down, and I felt bad about just disappearing from the frequency.

Wrapping Up

Despite the antenna mishap, I managed to log 18 contacts total before packing up. My hands were getting too cold to write legibly in my logbook, and the battery was starting to show signs of the cold affecting its capacity. The voltage had dropped from 12.8 to about 11.9 volts, and I could tell the transmitter wasn't quite as punchy as it had been earlier.

The drive home gave me plenty of time to think about what went well and what I'd do differently next time. The QRP transceiver performed great, and the end-fed antenna worked better than I expected for being so close to the ground. But I definitely need to invest in better cold weather gear and maybe bring some hand warmers.

Lessons for Next Time

First, dress warmer than you think you need to. What feels comfortable for a quick walk to the mailbox gets pretty miserable after sitting still for two hours. I'm thinking about getting one of those propane heaters that ice fishermen use.

Second, have backup plans for everything. Extra connectors, maybe a simple wire dipole as a backup antenna, and definitely more than one way to support the antenna. I'm considering getting some of those heavy-duty tent stakes to guy the pole down better.

Third, practice the setup at home first. I thought I knew my equipment pretty well, but there's something about being in the field that makes everything take longer than expected. Next time I'll time myself setting up in the backyard a few times before heading out.

Finally, invest in a better logging system. Writing in a paper logbook with cold fingers was not ideal. I'm thinking about trying one of the phone apps that can handle POTA logging, or at least getting a clipboard and some pre-printed log sheets.

All in all, it was a great experience despite the challenges. There's something really satisfying about making contacts from a park bench in the middle of nowhere with just a small radio and some wire. I'm already planning my next activation for a warmer day!

Anyone else have stories from their first POTA activation? I'd love to hear about other people's learning experiences in the comments.

When I first got my license back in February, I was so excited to get on the air that I immediately bought a Baofeng UV-5R and started hitting the local repeaters. That was fun for a while, but I kept hearing about HF and all the amazing contacts people were making around the world. The problem was, I had absolutely no idea where to begin with putting together an HF station.

The Research Phase (aka Going Down the Rabbit Hole)

I spent weeks watching YouTube videos, reading forums, and asking questions on Reddit. Everyone seemed to have different opinions about what radio to get as a first HF rig. Some people swore by the Yaesu FT-450D as a great starter radio, others recommended the Icom IC-7300 even though it was more expensive. A few suggested looking at older rigs like the Kenwood TS-440 or TS-940.

The antenna situation was even more confusing. Dipoles, verticals, loops, beams - my head was spinning. And don't even get me started on all the discussions about feedline, SWR, and antenna tuners. I was starting to feel overwhelmed and wondering if I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

Making Some Decisions

Finally, I decided to stop overthinking it and just pick something reasonable to get started. My budget was around $800 for everything, which I knew wasn't huge but should be enough for a basic setup. After reading countless reviews, I settled on a used Yaesu FT-450D that I found on a local ham swap page for $350. The seller was super nice and even threw in a desk microphone.

For an antenna, I decided to start simple with an end-fed half wave. I know there's some controversy about these antennas, but they seemed like a good compromise between performance and ease of installation for someone renting an apartment. I ordered a 49:1 UnUn kit from a small company and planned to build my own wire antenna.

Setting Up the Shack

The spare bedroom in my apartment isn't huge - maybe 8x10 feet - but it was enough to set up a basic station. I found an old wooden desk at a thrift store for $25 and spent a weekend sanding and refinishing it. It's nothing fancy, but it gives me plenty of room for the radio and has drawers for storing accessories.

One thing I didn't anticipate was how many cables and accessories I'd need. Besides the obvious power cable and microphone, I ended up needing coax, an SWR meter, and various adapters. The local ham radio store was incredibly helpful - the owner spent almost an hour with me making sure I had everything I needed and explaining what each item was for.

Power was another consideration I almost missed. The FT-450D needs 13.8V DC, and while it came with a cigarette lighter adapter, I knew I needed a proper power supply for base station operation. I found a good deal on a used Astron RS-20A linear supply. It's probably overkill for the FT-450D, but I figured it would handle any future radio upgrades.

The Antenna Adventure

Installing the antenna was definitely the most challenging part of the whole project. My apartment is on the second floor, and I don't have access to the roof or a yard where I can put up poles. I ended up running the end-fed wire from my shack window, around the building to a tree in the courtyard, and then back to another tree. It's not ideal, but my SWR readings are reasonable on most bands.

The 49:1 transformer is mounted in a small weatherproof box just outside my window. I had to get creative with the mounting since I couldn't drill into the building, but some heavy-duty double-sided tape and a couple of zip ties seem to be holding everything securely.

Getting the feedpoint impedance right took some experimenting. The antenna calculator said I needed about 65 feet of wire for 40 meters, but I ended up having to trim it a few times to get the SWR down to acceptable levels. Thank goodness for the SWR meter - I would have been completely lost without real-time feedback.

First Contacts and Lessons Learned

After all the setup work, making my first HF contact was incredibly exciting. I started on 20 meters in the afternoon and was amazed at how many signals I could hear. My first QSO was with a station about 500 miles away - not exactly DX, but it felt like magic compared to the 5-mile range I was used to with my HT.

I quickly learned that my antenna works much better on some bands than others. It's pretty good on 40 and 20 meters, okay on 15 meters, but pretty awful on 80 meters. I think the apartment environment and low height are hurting performance on the lower bands. That's something I'll have to work on in the future.

One surprise was how much difference the time of day makes. I'd heard about propagation in my license study, but experiencing it firsthand was eye-opening. 20 meters that was dead in the morning would come alive in the afternoon with stations from all over the country.

What's Next

Now that I have a functioning HF station, I'm already thinking about improvements. I'd love to try a different antenna design - maybe a magnetic loop for better performance in this limited space. I'm also interested in digital modes like FT8, which means I'll need to figure out the computer interface situation.

The whole experience has been incredibly educational. While the technical aspects were sometimes frustrating, there's something really satisfying about building a station piece by piece and learning how everything works together. If you're a new ham thinking about getting into HF, my advice would be to start simple and don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You can always upgrade and improve things later, but getting on the air and making contacts is what this hobby is all about.

73 and hope to work you on the bands!