I got a ham radio the other day.  The transceiver is only for UHF/VHF.  Only people I heard or made contacts were on FM repeaters.

My radio has a receiver that can receiver SSB and CW.

Tonight, I was listening on 40 meters around the CW calling frequency of 7.030 MHz after stringing up some hookup wire on the celing from one side to the other.  Now, I can pick up CW very well. 

I will here one person sending CW, then a bunch of people sending CW.   Is this a pile up of people trying to respond to some long distance person (DX I think is the correct terminology)?  How do you handle these situations?

The CW is too fast for me now.  If it was 1 WPM, I probably could copy it.  LOL.   But, I am still learning...

I do plan on buying or building a CW transceiver once I think I'll able to communicate.  What do you think would be good for a newbie?

Even though I see CW in the band plans, it seems like the HF bands is where I am hearing the CW transmissions.

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.

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

I would love to get a SoftRoc SDR and build it, but I have no desire to solder surface mounted parts.  I am lucky enough to be able to solder through-hole parts.  I wish the surface mounted ICs were already soldered on the board.  I have a Weller WLC100 soldering iron which I don't think will work for surface mounted ICs.   However, it is very tempted to get the pre-built SDR receiver (when it's available), the pre-built sells out quickly.

What would be a good antenna for 40 meters indoors?

Since impedence matching is very important, do you think it would be best to get an antenna tuner for 40 meters or maybe a SWR meter or directional watt-meter? 

My initial radio I want to use it with is an HT that can receive 40m SSB/CW/AM -- Kenwood TH-F6A.   

I will be re-using this antenna for other radios down the road, such as, home built SSB/CW receiver for 40m.  But eventually, I will buy a transceiver for 40m.

I think I have finally found the ham radio I want to buy.  The Kenwood TH-F6A is an HT transceiver for 2m/1.25m/70cm.  However, what really got me was the wide receiver: 0.1 - 1300 MHz.  This means I get all the HF ham bands.  But also various modes FM, AM, SSB (LSB/USB), and CW.

Would this model be counted as a scanner?

I am a FCC licensed Technical Class amateur radio operator.  Yet, I live in Virginia where I hear that scanners are illegal.

Is this radio legal for me to use in Virginia?   What are the laws concerning ham radios with wide receivers in Virginia?

I also wanted digital modes, such as, RTTY, D-STAR, etc., but this would bring the radio out of my price range.

Another reason I wanted a wide receiver portion is so I can build a ham radio and have something to compare to.  I really want to build a 40m SSB/CW radio. 

Anyone going to the Frostfest 2013?

Frostfest is a hamfest.

http://www.rats.net/j/index.php/frostfest-home
www.frostfest.com/

I think there will be the ARRL Virginia state ham convention there too.

Richmond Raceway Complex
600 East Laburnum Avenue
Richmond, VA 23222-2253

Another poster mentioned SoftRock SDR.

http://fivedash.com/

The cheapest is the SoftRock Lite II Combined Kit for US$21, but you have to build it yourself.  I do have a question about this.  Are there any surface mounted parts I must solder myself?  If yes, then this kit is a no-go for me.    Once built, does it need test equipment to align it? I do not have any test equipment.

There is the Built SoftRock Ensemble II HF Receiver for $92. 

If you go to www.websdr.org and go to w4ax, they use the SoftRock SDR receivers.  So, I am impressed how well they work.  Then again, I am no ham radio expert.  Most likely the antennas are good.

How come most VHF/UHF Handhelds I see advertised at various ham radio shops online are not multi-mode? 

They seem to be only FM.

I want to try out other modes, such as, CW, SSB, digital, etc. too.

Don't get me wrong.  I want to buy a ham radio and use FM, but I also want to try out CW.

Or am I missing something here?  Are the descriptions online just not being descriptive enough of these devices?  Maybe there is an add-on or attachment which allows other modes like CW to be used?

Daniel, KK4MRN

Thanks for all the replies.

I will try and build the 40m CW/SSB radio from here:
http://www.ke3ij.com/JFETrgn.htm

I wanted to build this on breadboards like I did for my crystal AM radio and audio amplifier, but I've read that with higher frequencies a breadboard will not work.  I might have to solder this on a perforated board.

I have that program too - Just Learn Morse Code.  It is good, but it can get boring just listening.

I also listen to live CW on 40 m.   Some are slow.  Some are fast.  Some you can tell use straight key. I do this also to hear how contacts happen.  I recognize the musical sound of a CQ call.

I have a few programs on my cell phone.  I have an iphone.  I'm sure Android and other makers have apps too for learning CW.  This way, you can learn it wherever you are.  However, you might need a pair of headphones so as to not annoy people around you. 

Most morse code software tends to focus on listening.  There is the Tap tab in the iphone software called Morse It which allows you to enter morse code.  If you enter the dits and dahs correctly with the correct spacing in between, the character will display.    I try tapping each letter of the alphabet, then the digits, then some punctuation like question mark, period, comma, then some pro-signs.  I then type my name, my call sign, think of sentences to type out.  This helps me learn too and keep me interested.  CWSpeed is another good app, but it is only for listening.

I notied on 20m from about 14.070 thru 14.120 MHz, digital modes are kicking.  I can see this on websdr w4ax.
  This is big considering I normally do not see 20m so busy.

Now, I just got to figure out how and what software to decode these digital modes.

Any suggestions?

I was wrong about Amatur Radio Supply.  I meant this instead:

Antique Radio Supply
http://www.tubesandmore.com/

I have bought the 1N34A germanium diodes from Scott's Electronics.  They worked in my crystal AM radio.  It worked much better once I hooked it up to a LM386 amplifier to power a 8 ohm impendence speaker so I would not have to use a crystal earphone.

Additional places in the USA or Web:

Radio Shack has Germanium Diodes.  I have not tried them though.

Do a search on their web site for: Ge Diode

NTE109 - D-GE General Purpose Diode
http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=ge%20diode&origkw=ge+diode&sr=1

You should be able to find them doing a search for germanium diode or 1N34A on Amazon.com or ebay.com

On Amazon.com, do a search for: Elenco Diode 80 Piece Kit
You will get an assortment of diodes which include Germanium Diodes.

Amateur Radio Supply
http://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/?gclid=CKrKio-4xbQCFcqY4AodJyUARg

Scott's Electronics
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/index1/

I have a challenge for myself to build a CW receiver for an HF band.  Maybe 40 meters? 

If that goes well and I learn my morse code well, then I want to eventually build a transmitter too.  So far, I have been giving myself goals.  Get the Technician License.  I did.  Build a crystal AM radio receiver.  I did.  Kind of worked.  I cheated by using my finger as ground.  I won't mention the number of tries I had to make building crystal radios for one to actually work. Then I hooked up a LM386 amp to it so I could listen via  speaker instead of crystal earphone - WOW, I pulled in a bunch of stations. 

Well, now I want to build a very simple CW receiver on a ham band using common parts.  When I mean simple, I really mean super simple.  And when I mean common parts, I mean parts that are not obsolete, can be easily found at your local radio shack. 

I looked over a ton of schematics on the web.  The "simple" CW receivers look complex to me.  Plus, many of them use parts that are not so common these days. 

I'm not interested in building a kit.  Maybe down the road I will build a kit which has all of the bells and whistles of a modern superheterodyne CW transceiver, but today I am interested in something I can actually build myself and get up and running.  Main reason, I'm on a shoestring budget for now. 

I have a ticket (ham license) but no radio.  I want to get on the air with my radio I built.  I found websdr.org online which allows me to listen to ham radio online, but nothing beats a real radio.  Plus, down the road, i want to actually make contacts which requires transmitting as well.

I do have a bunch of common components, such as, general purpose transistors like 2N2222, 2N3904, 2N4401, and a LM386 IC.  And I have capacitors and resistors via assortment packs.  I have magetic wire, hook up wire.  And I have germanium diodes, varactor diodes for the AM band, silicon diodes.

Even if I build the circuit, a bigger challenge is building the proper homemade coil(s) and antenna properly.

When I built my crystal AM radio earlier, I built a homemade antenna using 100 feet hook up 22# wire wrapped in a square loop.  Imagine a piano keyboard stand re-used as the holder for the wire for the loop antenna.   Then I have a coil for my LC tank which had 80 turns of green 26# enamled magnetic wire wrapped around a ferrite stick.  It picked up WRVA 1140 AM very well in Richmond, Virginia. 

Maybe this question is too big of a question to be answered, but I do hope to get some pointers in the right direction.  I "really" do want to get on the air using CW.  i am learning morse code, but my listing is like < 5 WPM now even though I know all the alphabet, numbers, some punt and pro-signs.  Maybe down the road, I will be interested in SSB as well or other modes.  For now, I am looking for the basics to get on the air.

Thanks in advance,
Daniel, KK4MRN