Hi Thomas :) Congratulations to the whole team for HRWBOTA. I was strangely pleased to see you using the Begali, as it is exactly the model I recently purchased! Haven't got the morse skills to go on air yet - can send at 15wpm, but still need a good Farnsworth spacing to copy. Pleased that my QRP-Labs QMX build was successful, and can't wait to get out on SOTA and POTA with it 👍 - Regards Keith, MW0IBH, North Wales, UK.
You're going to love that Begali key and the QMX! And well done on your CW progress. You'll soon be reading those dits and dahs on the air like a pro! Best, Thomas
My pennies this year are going to a new heat pump, but one day, a more modern radio like the 705 will be mine. For now, I'll settle for an external keyer once I'm air worthy.
TU Thomas, You were very kind to put up with my crappy straight ket sending. You had a Big Signal here in Michigan that day. 73 and TU for al you do for us! 72, Jeff K9JP
Thank you for taking the time to make this video. I use your videos, like a lot of people, for my Morsing practice, and I can now copy some of the code. It takes a while to learn but it is worth it, luckily I had no idea just how long it would take as I started out. I'm interested in the reasons people take up Morse Code. I was inspired after reading a book. Gone But Not Forgotten, about the training and the life of a merchant ship's radio officer in the late 1950s through to 1999. Morse code was and still is a fascinating way to communicate over vast distances. Have a great Christmas.
Didn't catch you in this activation. But I want to thank you. Your videos really inspired me to learn CW. I've grown confident enough to hunt cw POTA stations. Starting to make an effort to make a few CW contacts daily. W8SEG
Hello Thomas. Wonderful video and shows why west coasters envy east coasters. 😊. I plan to undertake POTA activations in a couple of months when my XYL retires and we hit the road in our Casita trailer. The video was quite instructive and very helpful to me. Now that I’ve seen what the IC 705 can do with 10W, I’m rethinking whether or not to get a Yaesu 891 for POTA. Maybe I need both. 😂 I hope to find you on the air one day. 73, de Tim KE6PMA
Thomas, I always enjoy practicing my CW with you and your contacts. I need to "train the brain" on spacing a little bit more. Several times I heard a state as "Z Z" and couldn't figure it out until you wrote down "MI" on the log. I'll work on that some more. As always, I thank you for these videos. de KA8VLW, Ken, Michigan ("Z")
Yeah...what happens is that states are sent so often that hunters don't allow quite enough spacing. They send it almost as a prosign. I, too, hear ZZ. :) Also QQ for MA.
$1400 seems like a lot, but I remember paying $700 for a used Icom IC-735 in 1997 when I first became a ham. Adjusted for inflation, that's almost exactly $1400 in 2024 money. In fact, I looked at the cost of radios dating back four decades for an article and we are--without a doubt--enjoying the lowest cost radio gear present day. There has never been a time with lower costs before this. It seems to be pricey mainly because the global market allows for super cheap, high-profit margin products out of countries with a low cost of living. The IC-705 is made in Japan...one of the highest cost of living countries in the world.