Steven Clark

congrats on the first activation, 22 contacts is a solid start honestly. for the tree thing, most people i know use either a slingshot or one of those arborist throw bags with a weighted bag on the end of some thin nylon cord. the throw bag method is probably the easiest to get started with, you can find cheap kits online or just tie a small bag of sand or a fishing sinker to some 50lb braided fishing line and practice in the backyard a few times. once you get the line over the branch you tie on your antenna wire and pull it up. takes a little practice but way less frustrating than a fishing pole for anything more than like 15 feet. the off-frequency caller thing happens all the time, dont stress it. usually if you just keep working split or say your frequency clearly they either figure it out or drift away. some folks are just not paying close attention or their rig is being weird. you handled it fine im sure.

so ive been a tech for about a year and a half now and keep seeing people talk about CW and how great it is and part of me wants to try it but i have absolutely no idea where to start. like i dont even know the alphabet in morse. do people just memorize the dots and dashes from a chart or is there some other way to do it? i tried printing out one of those charts and staring at it for a while but that doesnt seem right. also how long does it realistically take before you can actually have a QSO with someone, not like a super fast one just a slow one. im not in a huge rush just curious what the actual learning path looks like