Well, I made a totally new station five months ago.  I will tell you what I am glad I bought and what I regret.

Glad:
ICOM 718.  The only thing it lacks is a graphic spectrum display
High Sierra 1500 screwdriver antenna:   Have 130 entities as a newcomer in five months.  My architecture committee (XYL) put the nix on anything big.
Heathkit SB-220:  puts out 3-600 watts when asked running on 110v
Daiwa 801H:  Skip the cheap ones, tell at a glance if you are screwing up

Sorry:
Cheap odds and ends, they end up in the junk box.

If I were starting over I would go with the four items above.  And a bunch of coax cables......

1.  How long till a card I send via bureau reaches the ham overseas?
2.  How long till a card sent from overseas reaches me via the incoming bureau?
3.  How willing are VOICE hams to use the bureau for "free" both ways?  How many want/need GS?
4.  Anything else?  

I have 130 entities in five months on a vertical, five confirmed.   Looking to understand how much patience is needed.

I second what AE7G Bob said.  I would go further and here is my analysis:

For overseas QSL cards, I can send a kit (2 green stamps, envelope, my QSL card, air postage) for about $3.  Maybe a bit more.   For a buro card I pay $.08 for the card and $.06 to the buro, $.14.  So for $3 I can send one kit or 21 QSL cards.

My preference is to send the 21 QSL cards if the country can provide 21 (or even 10) QSOs.   More folks get more fun.  And if none of the 21 card recipients can afford to reply, maybe I will send a kit.   But right now my impulse is to say that I get a country if I get it.   And buying it is not my style.  If I know the country is short on money that might change my stand.  But all my DX is phone, and phone rigs are not cheap.  I doubt there are many poor phone station operators.  CW is a whole different story.

And just to prove that my opinion is worthless, I have 2 (two) QSL cards (but one is from San Felix).

Thanks, WB2WIK, I have an Icom 718 with VFO A and B.  Is that what they are for?   Is there a good book to learn to use one of these things?   The manual is less than helpful unless you already know the jargon.  

Thanks, WB2WIK, I have an Icom 718 with VFO A and B.  Is that what they are for?   Is there a good book to learn to use one of these things?   The manual is less than helpful unless you already know the jargon.  

I am lucky enough to have a transceiver with a linear and another receiver (IC-R71A).  So I would like to listen to Ducie on the R71a and get into the station on the linear.  How do I do this with a single antenna?  Do I leave the linear permanently connected and use another pole in the send relay to disconnect the rx while transmitting?  Is there chance of bad timing or RF feedthru to the front end of the R71A destroying it?  Or?  Plenty of folks run split, so there must be a way.  Many thanks for your wisdom and help.

W4BQF, are you suggesting that such software might be a great code training tool?   I would love to learn to copy fast, but I got stuck at around 9wpm so I thought being a programmer I might try some sw.  If it would help me learn to copy fast, that would be terrific!

WB2WIK Steve, thanks so much for your thoughtful reply.  1x19 is like 7x19 except instead of each of the 19 strands having seven substrands, each of the 19 is solid wire.  The HS vertical with four radials seems to work, I QSOed Queensland with it (about 7000 miles) and Warsaw (6000 miles).  Also Jim at HS seems to like the radial config ok, but I will follow your advice and add more.   I usually work 10 and 20 m.  

As far as RF hazard goes, I used the UTAustin page on the web and am OK for controlled even with 100% transmit time (which I never come even close to) and even at 10m.

Thanks for your recommendations.  

Moving further away from the antenna is quite difficult.  I will consider it further.
I will add more radials.
I will try to get in some copper flashing.  Should it go to the amplifier chassis or to the antenna counterpoise attachment point or both?
Would it be wise to try to shield the operating position from the antenna?  Can I trust the UT page?

Does Lowe Modemaster do this?   What about other products?  I whanged off something in about an hour that should do great with strong signals, I am curious to see what it does with weak ones, probably poor.

Please let me know what is out there so I have some idea about what to do next.   Thanks.  

Givens:

I have an IC-718 located about 15 feet from the ground (and a new 8'
ground rod).  The chassis is grounded by a 25' piece of 6 gauge 1x19
copper between them.  The antenna is a HighSierra vertical screwdriver
whose base is about 8' above the radio.  It has a counterpoise of 14
gauge stranded wire radials emanating from the base and sloping downward
(32', 16', 2x 8').  The radio is driven off a lead acid cell and is
isolated from the house AC.

Questions:

What (if anything) should I change to adhere to best grounding
practices?  I am assuming that from 60Hz and dc point of view I am
grounded well.  Should the ground rod be tied to the house wiring?  What
about RF ground?  Is the 6 ga useless?  Do I need a wide braid or copper
sheet ground?  What about counterpoise issues?  Is the connection from
the transceiver chassis to the counterpoise via the coax outer braid in
the feedline adequate?  Should a low reluctance connection be made from
the base of the antenna to the ground rod?  Any other changes?  I am
adding a linear driven off  the house AC, would this make any other grounding
changes advisable?

Well, here is the design I came up with.   A 6v and a 12v lead acid in series.  A relay that selects between just the 12v and both in series.  The relay coil driven by the drop across the 12v, so that when the voltage across the 12v drops, the coil releases and the 6v is added to the supply.   When the current drops, the 12v battery shows a bigger voltage drop across it, the relay snaps, and the 6v is removed from the circuit.   Problems:  Relay needs he-man contacts (150A?), not clear how the linear will like those sudden power changes (from 10v to 15v when the 6v kicks in, or worse 15v to 19v when the draw stops).

It was the only simple solution I could come up with.  

As it was, I gave up on the DC supply and went with a Heathkit SB-220.   Now I need a generator to be able to drive it in an emergency.

Thanks to both of you for your thoughtful input.  Here is how far I have gotten on the problem.

Imagine a power supply of 3 6v lead acids in series.  18v nominal, 21v no-load, 15v at 100A.
Imagine a regulator which is a "magic resistor" connected in series with the linear.

Here are the specs:

Draw  Voltage   %  Rtot   Rext   Pext  Pint
   .1   21     75   200   150      .6     1.5
  1     20     85    20     3     3      16
  5     18     85     3.5    .5   2.5    80
 10     17.5   94     1.7    .1  10     160
 20     16     98      .8    .03  6     300
100     15    100      .1   0     0    1400    

Draw is the total draw of the regulator and linear
Voltage is the battery voltage under that draw
% is the percentage of the supply to be delivered to the linear
Rtot is the total resistance, Rext is the regulator resistance
Pext is the power dissipated by the regulator
Pint is the power used by the linear

How does one build such a "magic resistor"?   Does this look like the reverse path on a zenar?

Thanks again for the help.   Dave  KG6IBW

I want to put in a linear to run on lead acid cells (part of my desire for disaster communications).  The Ameritron ALS-500M rates the voltages like this:   18 damage, 17 max, 16-14 good, 13 compomised, 12 weak, 11 damage.  A bank of 3x6v batteries in series works about like this:  idle 21v, low drain 20v, moderate drain 17v, high drain (needed by the 500M at full power) 15v.  

How can I build a regulator to fit between the batteries and the amp to reduce very high voltages slightly under low load conditions but deliver the whole enchilada when the current draw is high (80A)?