Enough bad, on to the good

If you don't want to read a lot of complaining by me, don't read my previous post. Read this one instead:

Things in the world of Ham are going well. My wife and I have passed our General written test with out trouble (the VE's made a point of saying that my wife scored better on the test than I did, which I think is quite amusing). She's very enthusiastic and we're both now working on studying for our Extra. I want to do that. I wasn't sure I would but my desire to reach the "top" of the licenses is strong now. It's going to be work with the larger question pool and longer test, but I think we can do it.


Also thanks to some new consulting working coming in I have the money to buy and HF radio. I probably should save that money, but I really want to get on the air. We don't have the Ham support structure in the area to give us another place to operate, at least not conveniently, and as such, we must do for ourselves. Looking at the Yaesu 897D, all band all mode. Looks like a good radio and not bad on price as these things go. Going to do that, and some form of portable HF antenna (Outbacker maybe, or perhaps a wire dipole depending on money) and just operate when and where we can. I don't plan to do much from home, mostly to keep the neighbors on good terms. There are a lot of possiblities, and I'm looking foward to getting involved in the wider HF world.

I did request a sequential call change when I upgraded, but what I got wasn't very satisfactory. It's a group D call (2X3) and not very interesting, so I went ahead and put in for my vanity call. We'll see which off the list I get. I'm sorry to let go of my KC8 call but really I've lived in Zero country for 10 years, I figure its time to change.

Wife and I have set a deadline of August for our Extra written test. Lots of studying to do.