Your conception of Amateur Radio!
What appealed to you the most when you obtained your Amateur Radio Licence? There are so many facets to the hobby that several people can be involved with what they are doing and they will never ever discover each other.There are boundless interests within the hobby as can be seen from either the RSGB or ARRL handbooks.
Those two books themselves represent an overall picture of the hobby and in fact if your interests are purely in the UK and what is happening there, you may never have seen an ARRL handbook or maybe not even know of the machinations of the ARRL.
If your imagination extends beyond the shores of the UK, but you have never used the HF bands to any great extent, they may seem like contest fields! There are so many these days and they do not appeal to everybody. However, there are secret contacts happening that you may not realise are there.
You may be attracted to the Digital world using the FT modes, or even just a computer on its own talking to another computer. However, how about a Digital Reset? If your interest is waning, why not wake it up again and take a look at the well tried and tested weak signal Communication Digital mode of Morse Code?
When I was first licenced in 19 hundred and fish and chips, Morse was the ONLY mode available to us for the first year. This did get us on the air however and we had to learn Morse in order to communicate, something I have never regretted.
Imagine yourself as a member of a prestige club, yes I know NARC is just that, but I mean a CW club. They are not just contest orientated but have on-air activities like QSO parties, frequencies that they use on a regular basis and conversations going on that last a long time unbeknown to somebody who cannot read the code.
You can enable friendships to take place, have regular chats with stations all over the world. Life-long friendships can be made which can also lead to meeting and staying with each other, friendships you might not have made had it not been for CW.
I have done just this, staying with friends in the US, from one side to the other, Canada, Australia with those friends coming here too. It really does expand your horizons not to mention your interests, especially once you hit 25wpm. You can do all this on simple antennas and relatively low power too. There is a huge world out there and some amazing friends to be made.
You can do it! There is no such word as can’t and you have four guys locally who are willing to give their time to help you get there. They are all members of some of these CW clubs and all have – another Big P word coming up – they all have a PASSION for the mode that they are willing to impart to YOU.
So, before we go any further we would like to hear from YOU first. What are your ambitions? Would you like to take part in this quest? What level are you, beginner, intermediate or are you already around 20wpm and would like some extra tuition to get you above 25wpm?
Email me: roger@g3ldi.co.uk or
Jim G3YLA: g3yla@hotmail.co.uk or
Malcolm G3PDH: g3pdh@btopenworld.com or
Phil G4LPP: thedoctorphil@gmail.com
Let us know BEFORE we start organising any classes.
We look forward to hearing from anybody interested.
73 de Roger, G3LDI