First QSO.

 Freshly licensed, my PRC 320 had arrived and I immediately charged the battery. Instead of setting up a wire antenna I decided if I could get anyone on 40 meters with the 2 meter whip.


I took the rig out into the driveway and set it up and tuned the antenna. None of this was hard because the PRC 320 is so damned simple. It was designed that way so a British 'squaddie' could be trained to use in in a very, very short time. Having used radios in the service it was instinctive.

I picked a random frequency and listened for anything and having heard nothing, I keyed the handset and asked "Is the frequency in use?" and received a sharp 'Yes!'.

"Sorry," I replied. "I'm a brand new ham and I guess I got a lot to learn."

"Brand new, huh? Well this is The Brothers net and I'll check you in. What's your callsign? I'm XX#XXX and you're 5x5."

I had crashed a net!

"Hey, guys, we got us a brand new ham on the air. Stand by a minute." He explained the Brothers net to me and then said told me to throw out my call and told the guys if any of them could hear me to work me. I made 3 more QSOs and someone asked me what my rig was. I told him what it was and said, "30 watts and a 2 meter whip." They were amazed. 

One of the QSOs the guy really worked me over with about a dozen "Come again with your calls" He gave me a 2x2 but it worked.

I later looked it up and found net control was over 250 miles away!

I sent for and received 4 QSL cards.

An amazing first time at bat.

 

Looking back on it there's a reason it worked out so well. I was polite, straightforward and admitted my ignorance. I made no lame excuses. I had actually also to a small extent gotten lucky as every hobby has jerks and I didn't run into one. I had run into basic, helpful hams that wanted me to be successful. 



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