I am a newbie to Amateur radio and although I am almost in my 6th decade on this great earth, I simply feel like a 'kid in the toy store' when I am playing radio. I got my first ticket in March, 2009 and upgraded to General in June. My hope of attaining Extra class status by the end of the year will not be realized, but I should attain that upgrade early in 2010. When I was much younger, I had a desire to try and get a novice license, but that blasted code was the 10 foot wall that I could never scale. Dropping the CW requirement has allowed the hobby to realize a rebirth in my opinion.

My profession is in the chemical arts and I never dabbled much in the fields of electricity, electronics, or radio. During the past year I have sampled much of what amateur radio has to offer and purchased several ready to go rigs including analog and "digital" HT's along with mobile and a couple of base units. I began by purchasing antennas and then learning how to 'roll my own' with much Elmer support. I bought an antenna analyzer to make sure that I could find the perfect SWR, what ever that might be! Cables, power supplies, rigblasters, special data cables, headsets, external speakers - I think I must have almost one of everything except linear amps!

I tried my hand with SSB mode on the HF bands and competing with many other amateurs just to make that brief DX contact. I chewed the rag with old timers and with other newbies in many states, several countries, and locally too. I began filling my logbook and sending and collecting QSL cards. I checked into nets galore, joined many organizations, collected many unique member numbers, and did some paper chasing. I wanted to do it all and do it all right now.

I live in the metro Atlanta area which is a rich area for all sorts of radio knowledge. I mentioned before that I joined many organizations. I think I have joined every radio club in the area, mainly so I can at least touch base with as many hams as I possibly can. Sometime in the early summer, I found a different type of club - one that has no officers, no dues, no agenda at all other than to simply have fun. That club is called the North Georgia QRP club, and like many clubs it has once a month meetings. The meetings are in downtown Atlanta, and are always held on Saturday mornings. Anyone who chooses to attend is considered a member, which is a great concept.

When I found out what QRP is, I was hooked. I had found in this club what I believe is the essence of amateur radio. A collection of mostly older guys who have been building their own gear and antennas forever! The best part is that they are willing to impart that knowledge to me and anyone else willing to learn something about radio. 

So here I am, knowing nothing about electronics or radio specifically, buying kits, soldering irons and solder and actually about to attempt a manhattan style pixie. Here is  a site I found that I will be following to learn more about radio theory and pixie building from scratch:

dixiepixieproject.blogspot.com

This pixie blog is by KI4SGU and it looks like it will be very instructive, especially for a non-technical amateur. I plan to attach some pictures of my efforts with this build along with progress reports. By the way, I realized that my SSB skills will not be needed for the pixie transceiver so I decided to begin learning the essential CW. It is not as hard as I thought when I was younger, thanks to some great code teaching programs - but it is not that easy either!

Until next time - 73 - k0nwt