This is probably old hat to the veteran hams out there but this evening I finally, successfully, made clear contact on 10m SSB phone! A milestone for me, after tons of antenna research and tuning around on the frequencies forever. Stockton Delta Amateur Radio Club (SDARC) has a weekly informal net on 28.457 MHz SSB, and whenever I could be at my radio on Thursday evenings, I’ve tried to make contact during this net to no avail. This evening, I decided to move my poorly-placed (6 ft off the ground against a wooden fence) 10m dipole a few feet outward toward the open air, and waited. I should also mention that I utilized the LDG YT-100 auto-tuner for the first time before doing this, ensuring impedance match from my transmitter. WB6NVB/Charlie checked for frequency use then called CQ CQ CQ. I responded to him repeating his call then my call a few times, and lo and behold he got me loud and clear! Over the course of our discussion, he guessed I was putting out 100w. I told him I was starting at 25 watts, and dialed it down to 5, and still was clear. Granted, we are in the same city only several miles apart, so it was sufficient and I continued at that 5 watt power level. So while this was not a DX contact, where I’ve heard 10m has often been a worldwide frequency band, it was exciting for me to finally get a QSO in the HF range. Thanks again, WB6NVB! Soon enough, this will be no big deal to me, but for now it has been a great encouragement in my progress as a ham.

I briefly heard someone on 10m single-sideband (SSB) saying goodbye to his QSO friend, and that he was going to tune around on 2m SSB. Although I knew 2m SSB existed, never occurred to me that now that I have an all-mode rig, I could also tune around there instead of being bound only to FM by a handheld radio. I started sweeping from 144.100 MHz and started hearing morse code at right around 144.282 MHz. I switched to CW mode and tuned further to 144.282.23: https://youtu.be/tsUv91BxZxQ I recorded it, and was fascinated. Note, this was received while connected to my 10m dipole antenna that is pretty poorly mounted against a fence 6ft off the ground– not the most optimal setup. After spending many retries, replaying the recording over and over and referencing my morse code (CW) cheatsheet, I found this to say: