I was doing some cleaning around the house the other day and came across a QSL card of the very first contact I made. It was June 6th, 1989 and I was pounding out CQ with my Bencher BY-1 Iambic paddle. I had a script all made up with a step by step CW QSO contact information. As I very well remember things did not go as planned. I now know I just was experiencing what any new green CW op would experience. I was listening to the code that was being sent and writing it down on paper but then I missed a letter and started to concentrate on the missed letter. This meant I missed even more code and was lost in no time. I had to do I mental reset and carry on. At some points, I fell into the bad habit of counting dits and dahs and not hearing the rhythm again it was panic setting in. When it came time to send I wanted to for some reason send just a bit faster than I was receiving well that did not work out too well when I was receiving and the code was coming back at me just a bit faster! While on the subject of sending I did find myself messing up letters and having to send words again. Then frustration set in which made it worse, but I did complete the QSO. As stressful as it may have seemed I was thrilled and could not wait for my next contact.
At that time my station setup was the Icom IC-745 it was second hand but I loved it and had served me for many years. My antenna was the Crushcraft R4 vertical antenna which for my location was the best solution. I did not own the house I was living in so a tower and beam were out of the question. Also, the lot was small so no room for ground radial. The R4 answered my needs as it did not need ground radials and had a very small footprint. As stated earlier I had the Bencher BY-1 key.
Can any of you remember your first contact and the gear you were using at the time?
6 comments:
Hi Mike, I can't recall my first QSO in 1976. But I do remember my first QSO when I came back after many years, it was AO5KB with SSB 5 watts on my FT817 with a short vertical indoors. 73 Paul
Good morning Paul I hope all is well, with 5 watts and an indoor vertical to boot is great work getting into the U.S. Very exciting first contact for sure.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Hello Mike, yes I remember my first contact in 1979....it was with my dad on a CB WT. I remember my first SSB contact with the USA in 1987. I remember my first CW contact. Well I remember a lot I've done in the past including the most special contacts. Luckely my blog helps me to remember sometimes. 73, Bas
Good morning Bas always great to hear from you, I too started in CB, but I can't remember my first contact with CB. It was CB that got me interested in Ham radio as I would hear all the long distance stations or skip as it was called on CB. Yes I too have looked at past posts in my blog to job my memory as well. It's like an online diary.
73 and have a great week,
Mike
VE9KK
OH....you meant my first QSO ;-). Yes, it was with Eric, KG6MZS on the 3 Jan 2000. You may laugh at this Mike, but my Dad was a ham, and was always trying to get me to get my ticket. Unfortunately I didn't get it until after he became a SK. My Dads name was Eric, so to have my very first QSO with a guy called Eric was very special for me, it was like Dad was saying well done.
Well good evening "Blogmaster" and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, that is crazy with the first contact being the same name as your dad. For sure, it was him saying congrats.
73 and have a great week,
Mike
VE9KK
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