There are good clubs out there and I hope you can find one.  As has been said a couple of times, the members ARE the clubs so you can influence things by your own actions.  A hard road, but sometimes worth it.

My main point is about your plans to upgrade so you can get on HF....you have HF privileges NOW.  You have CW rights on 80, 40 and 15 meters as well as the CW, DATA and SSB rights on 10 meters.  If you're thinking about giving CW a try, DO IT!  General class will give you more frequencies and bands, but you don't have to wait to jump in.

73 and hope to meet you on air,
Doug/ KC4RSL

Is it necessary that you only use 2 supports?  As others have said, tensioning is one of the reasons you need stout end supports when using 2 masts/ trees/ towers.  I'm lucky  to have 2 perfect trees in my yard.  I also have a great big oak right between them, so I got into the habit of hanging the mid-point in the oak and the trees at the ends only have to support the wires; there's very little tensioning to deal with and it seems to handle winds better this way too.  Adding a 3rd support in the middle should let you use lighter supports and be easier than coming up with a stout mast.

73,
Doug/ KC4RSL

The Shack in my locale still stocks both the $17/ 100 foot "outside" twinlead and the VERY lightweight interior  twinlead for I think about $3/ 50 ft.  

The interior stuff might seem too lightweight for use at first but can be useful.  It makes a good roll-up j-pole that can handle my rig's 40 watts without complaint, and will fit nicely in 1/2 inch PVC for more permanent mountings.

It might even be useful for portable qrp work....

Doug/ KC4RSL

10 meters is upper sideband.  
A bad phrase that may help is "20 and up: Upper sideband.  40 and lower: Lower sideband."

Good luck with the QSO!  We're at the bottom of the solar cycle so 10 meters is often closed.  Don't let that discourage you.  When it does have an opening it can be magic, and there are still a fair number of openings even now.  And don't forget to check out the huge CW privileges that you have as a Technician; pick up some CW decoding and/or sending software like CWGET and CWTYPE and you'll find that it can be a lot of fun to get your feet wet!

73,
KC4RSL

Thanks!  I was seriously thhinking of making my own connector; the ball point pin tip may come in handy.

I may not have to.  I found a manual for the tr2300 at rigpix.com.  Kenwood actually put the all important part numbers in that manual, and I've tracked down a place that claims to have some cables left. Now I just need to track down 147.225 rx/ 147.825 tx crystals...I've already checked and I don't have the frequencies you're looking for, sorry.

Picked up one of these old beasties and I'm trying to breathe life into it again.  If you don't remember it, it was a 2 meter crystal rig that looked a lot like an FT817.  Battery powered, shoulder-strap portable.  

I'm having trouble locating the connector used for the dc power supply.  Anyone have any suggestions, or a site with a 2200a manual?  Looks like the different models had different power supply set-ups, which isn't helping me any...

Dug
KC4RSL