Greetings,
So, I'm back, after an absence of many years apart from a sporadic post or two. I've now had my ticket for more than nine years but never got on the air!
Three years ago we moved from the U.S. Northeast to England. We are finally living in a property where it should be possible to install a full-size 40m dipole (the biggest issue back in America was my landlord's opposition to putting it up on his property). Given the size and orientation of our house plot, the antenna will transmit east-west rather than north-south.
There are four steps remaining before I can start operating. In increasing order of magnitude:
(1) Back in 2014, I built ARRL's "A Simple Two-Tube Transmitter" from "How to Become a Radio Amateur" published in 1968:

This has a "universal" primary on the power transformer which needs to be re-wired for 240VAC. This is trivial as I just need to move a couple of jumper wires and re-solder them (for US voltage there are two primaries in parallel, for Europe they are in series).
I'll also have to change the existing 1A AC fuse to 500ma, presumably. (The code on the existing fuse is BUSS AGC1A).
The receiver will be the "Three Transistor Receiver for the Beginner" from the same ARRL book, which I also built back then. Possibly I will also try using a messy receiver concoction that I built at the time, which was a regenerative receiver using subminiature tubes built on a large wooden breadboard.
(2) Building and putting up the antenna. This will either be a simple 40m dipole or a dual-band 20m/40m dipole with traps. I have all the components for building this.
(3) Taking and passing the British Foundation licence test (I am now spelling licence with two C's as in British English) followed by the Intermediate licence test. This allows working on the HF bands at 50W, among other things. The Foundation licence on its own would not suffice because it forbids the use of homebrew equipment.
(4) Brushing up my CW which is now just about all forgotten.
Yes this will take a while -- and perhaps never happen. Those who know me understand that I am a big procrastinator, and I do also run a busy small business. So no promises. My U.S. ticket expires next year (2022) and I will just let it die, since I am planning to obtain a new, British call.
If I do get on the air with the Novice rig described above, I will later move on to more powerful and sophisticated vintage ARRL designs for which I already purchased many of the components years ago but have not yet been built. The main issue is that we now live in a much smaller house (despite the nice large garden) and there really isn't space for a proper workshop.
73 from Martin, KB1WSY