Forum Federato

Good to see the AP calling out Kennedy's lies.https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-kennedy-rfk-congress-senate-vaccines-covid-deaths-hospitals-efa457f139dabcce6f54c0ac2c590512

I really didn't like the mechanics of this prior iteration, either. Too much leverage on the BNC connector in the radio. That and the high voltage on bare terminals right next to my fingers. I'll be happier setting this up now!

Here is a video of me sending CQ POTA DE KZ4LY at 20WPM with my new key. Well, it's a video of my radio while I'm sending with my new key. It sounds very clicky in the video because of the quiet environment and the phone taking the video "enhancing" the audio. It's actually very quiet in real use. It's the quietest key I have; quieter than my Kent or Putikeeg for example.

I celebrated a day off work today in part by doing #POTA. I finally activated the park closest to my house — a short ten minute drive away. This time, using a measly 5W on CW, into a wire thrown up into a tree (40m EFHW), in a low area next to a stream because that's where the park is.I needed just one more QSO to successfully activate, and then got a 539 signal report from a patient hunter in Sweden. Patient in particular because I had only one contact outside the east US, and thought I'd copied poorly. I was so confused that I sent SRI CALL AGN? before I realized what I was hearing.I'm still a CW greenhorn, and some of the other operators also had to be a little patient. I ran 15WPM. I don't think anyone was running much over 20WPM calling back, and with a few ? and AGN? for some repeats, I got through without having to request QRS. I hope by the end of the year to run 20WPM comfortably, including handling pileups.#HamRadio continues to blow my mind.