KD8HCV Is On the Air!

Monday morning we all gathered at the tower computer & insulted the database on QRZ.com. Mikey was a no show. Tuesday, expecting results, we gathered again and still no word of Mikey's license. Wednesday she come up & still no news. Not that it would have made any difference, being as how he was out on a remote job. Then Thursday comes up & still nothing.
     We all sat through the day pretty well settled on the possibility that Mike wouldn't get his license – at least not find out that he had one electronically – until after the weekend. Thus, on Thursday night we all figured we'd wait until tomorrow with our fingers crossed but our minds pretty well made up that it was a 50/50 shot either way.
     
Now on Thursday nights we have this little domestic routine: Cid hired a retired woman to come in on Fridays while we're all out at work &c to clean up the house. Vacuum the carpets, wipe down the bulkheads, check the hatch combing, scare the cats. Stuff like that. Thus, after dinner, if Cid hangs around – 'cause most weeks she goes to the gym – she gives me a hand. But this time it's just me & I am thus turned to on picking up the kitchen. Wash out the sinks, clear the counter tops, put stuff away, sweep the floor.
     So the phone rings.
     I have caller ID and if it ain't a number I recognize or if no name or caller ID is shown I let the machine answer.
     But this time it's Mikey.
     I pick up the phone. "Hello?"
     A pause.
     "Nils?"
     "Yeah?"
     "It's me, Mike."
     "Yep."
     "You finish dinner?"
     "Yep."
     "You got time for a first QSO?"
     "You get it?" (referring to the license)
     "Yep."
     "Sweet." I hand the phone to the young'n. He'll hang it up when I get upstairs.
     Upstairs I pick up the phone & we transfer the communications protocols.
     "Let's do this," I suggest, "Let's meet on 144.2 USB."
     "How about 75m?"
     "Ah . . . Ok. Three point eight one five is open."
     "Ok."
     I fiddle with the antenna settings, smack the tune button & up we come on 3.815. Mike hears my carrier.
     "Man, that sounds weak."
     "Ok, you call me."
     I hear a voice under the static crashes. "You're weak, dude."
     Over the phone Mike says "What's your idea?"
     "Meet me on 144.2 USB."
     "Ok." Mike fiddles with his radio & zippo-bang, there he is. Almost on frequency.
     We discuss the frequency problem. I tune him in with the rit. We talk about that. His radio vs. my radio kinds of things, stuff I've already noticed between my '706 and the '817.
     All that settled, we hang up the telephones & get to talkin' on the air. While we talk I fill out a QSL card. Two, actually: one regular size, the other a business card size. Printed the smaller ones so I could use 'em at the Hamvention &c.
     We talked for maybe 45 minutes, both of us using vertical antennas. When I switched to the 2m beam (horizontally set) we could still talk but it was not anywhere as clear. We stuck to vertical polarization & went on.
     Being as I had chores to do, I offered that we could end up one of the local repeaters & I'd get another of the work gang to show up so Mike could talk with him. That being decided we QSY'd to the 145.11 repeater. I was able to talk with my other co-worker but Mike couldn't hear either of us. Then another guy from the gang showed up and we talked for a while.
     Mike called me on the telephone & told me he was trying to figure out what was up. I said that I was gonna go do my chores. He was cool with that so I left Frank and Oscar to listen up for him.
     
The next morning I took the QSL cards & a Nifty! Ham band chart to work and handed Mikey the gifts. We talked for a while about what was up & whether or not he'd talked with Frank and Oscar.
     Turns out Mike had turned on the receiver tone squelch control and, since the neither the repeater nor Frank or Oscar were running tones, Mikes radio ignored the signals. Once Mike turned that off he was able to hear the other guys & thus carried on for a while before signing off.

Mike now has the entire weekend to waste on things like putting up more antennas or fixing up what he's got. He can also drop down on MedCars or any number of other nets & discussion groups to check out how things work.
     And he's discovered that we didn't sound good on 75m because he had simply forgotten to push "The Button." The button on the LDG auto antenna tuner that he had sitting right next to the radio.
     So that's another thing Mikey learned.
     Just think: when Mike does push "The Button" he's going to discover hanging around on 40m or on 20m or even 75m can be a great way to spend the entire day or night just talking to people . . . one after another until he runs out of log pages.

But at least he's on the air, right? So listen for him. He's KD8HCV