Finally on the air in Richmond, Virginia. CQ any Hams?

[KK4MRN]

I finally got myself a ham radio transceiver today.   I got my Tech ticket last November.  Now, if I can find anyone in Richmond,Virginia or near me to make a contact.  Is anyone listening?  Or is my rig just not good enough to pick up anything on 2m/70cm ?

If this is not the appropriate forum for this, please let me know what is.

Since I have not joined a ham club - yet, I have no idea what to expect or if I will be able to make a contact.  I did join ARRL though.

I bought a Kenwood TH-F6A which is a handheld 2 meters/1.25 meters/70cm transceiver.  I got a Diamond SRH77CA antenna for 2m/70cm bands.

I have a repeater directory.  I got them programmed in my HT now.   I was only wanting to listen today to see what is out there.  Yet, I got brave and called CQ on the national simplex calling frequency 146.520.  I looked in the band plans for this.  And I made sure I was not bothering any repeater frequencies.  But, I did not get any replies.

Interestingly, if I hook a homemade loop antenna I made with 22# hook up wire and use my wide receiver, I can pick up 40 meters a little bit.  I hear some CW and some SSB.  But I guess because of the SSB Contest, the hams are all on top of each other.  So, I can not make anything out except a few words here and there.  The receiver works better than my home AM/FM radio. Weather stations.  I even picked up Shortwave - no idea what they were saying.

Thanks,
Daniel, KK4MRN

[AC4RD]

Daniel, a lot of places have very little activity on 146.52.  A good place to start would be a couple of the local repeaters.  When one is silent for a couple of minutes, key up and give your callsign.  You can add "Am I making it into the repeater, please?"   Some repeaters are friendlier to new users than others--but you'll find out which ones are the most friendly after a bit of operating.

Congratulations on that new ticket!   Have fun!    --ken

[KK4MRN]

Ok.  I tried on a repeater on 2 meters at Noon.  My heart was pounding.   After several attempts, I got my first contact to WB4YMA, Paul from Richmond, Virginia.  Now, that was exciting.  I think it was a rag chew too.

On my wide receiver this late morning, I hear people doing SSB contests on 20 meters, 15 meters, and 10 meters.  I did not hear anything on 17m nor 6m donig USB.
Nothing on 80m or 40 m.  Maybe tonight I will try on those bands.  Surprisingly, 15 meters is doing well which I did not expect.

[AC4RD]

Great, Daniel!  Glad to hear you got on the air and enjoyed yourself!   There's a whole WORLD of fun waiting for you! 

The propagation summary said "fair" for 15meters, but I spent a while playing in the contest this weekend, and had some nice openings to Africa on Saturday, and then Sunday afternoon (a few hours ago as I write this) there were European stations nearly wall-to-wall.   Even 10m, which was "poor" by the summary, had nice openings on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

When you are ready to try HF, Daniel, those contests are a great way to work lots of stations very quickly.   You could work your first 100 countries on HF with one good contest weekend!  :-)  But you may not want to give that a try just yet. 

Again, welcome to a wonderful hobby, Daniel!  And welcome to eham.net; there are some great people here with a lot of experience and opinions to share.  73!  --ken