I'm an Amateur Radio Op. 99.9% CW. Any others here?

Any questions about it?

-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy

lol


... sorry chuck

@chuck: I just can't resist. Sorry.
There is a ham in here.

EDIT:
Sorry about that, can someone tell me why pictures that I am looking at elsewhere at full size and would fit a post get inflated when I link to them?

I learned Morse code in electric shop in junior high and played around the CB's in the 70s, but that's about it.

I had a shortwave radio years and years ago. Then Al Gore invented the internet...

My dad used to be a HAM Radio Enthusiast. Had a lifetime subs. to that CQ quarterly and tons of cards in a box. He sold his equipment when we moved to a larger house and he had to spend more time doing 'house' stuff. antenna and all.

My dad had a CB for years until he got a car phone. Then he never used the car phone because airtime was so expensive then.

I was a Morse Intercept Operator in the Army, and my education is Electronics, so it was a fit for me. I have a few radios, a couple I built myself. I like to backpack, and I take a radio with batteries, and throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, and talk at night. One of the first things I did to my motorhome is put a radio and antenna together. I've worked New Zealand from Ohio with 5 watts power. My AA sponsor started to throw an Altoids tin away, and I said, "Give it to me, I'll put a radio in it." That's what I did, and worked North Carolina with it.

The hobby no longer requires a Morse Code test, for the US or Canada. There are lots of different aspects to the hobbe, everything to chatting on the local repeater with a handheld FM rig, to doing moonbounce and working satellites. Lots of digital stuff going on now, hook a computer with some freeware to and a sound card to a SSB rig, and you can send all kinds of stuff back and forth on HF. Some Hams like to get together in the local clubs and be prepared to help out in emergencies, like hurricanes, etc. Others like to compete in contests, where you see how many different stations, states, countries, etc. you can contact in a weekend.

Me, I just like to chat in Morse Code, with my modest radios and simple antennas. It is a way to keep my technical skills and my grey matter active, and a blast from the past to my old spook days. I have a R-390 receiver, my Cold War weapon of choice, on my workbench now. It is a thing of beauty, with I think 29 tubes, permeability tuning, and it is, to this day, unsurpassed in low band AM reception. I love the old beast.

Something fun to do in the winter, or when the urge strikes. Thanks for making a thread of it.

-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy

I had one of these. This thread is nerd central.

Quote:

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I was a Morse Intercept Operator in the Army

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My dad did that for a while. He then went to the Army Language school and learned Russian. He chose Russian since his other options were Chinese and Korean and the Korean War was on.

So he spend the Korean War in Austria, which was divided like Germany at the time. Besides translating radio intercepts, he interrogated drunk Russians who drifted into the American zone of Vienna.