Feb-06-2012: 125(118)/170 DXCC CW confirmed. LoTW confirmations in parentheses.

And UA2FR completed the 100 in LoTW confirmations (Nov-20-2011), so I won't have to send in cards for the application! Spasibo, Valentin!

FP/KV1E made the 100 full (Nov-16-2011)! Now I am waiting for 5 more LoTW confirmations so I don't have to send in my cards .

EV1R made my day today (Oct-20-2011). His LoTW confirmation made it 75 DXCC confirmed in CW now! SPBO, Alex!!

Great day today (Sep-18-2011): Exactly 2 months after my first QSO as AE7ON, I have now 50 DXCC entities confirmed (of 100 worked). Thanks to LoTW and KH2L (who was no. 50!). Thanks!!!

Dec-6-2011: WAE III-CW #4404

Nov-21-2011: DXCC CW #12,770

Oct-5-2011: WAS CW #55,702

How I came to be a Ham and other background information .

Thanks to my elmer and friend DL8IJ (then DL8MFJ) who dragged me to a ham convention and introduced me to the magic of morse code, I got hooked to the code and started with amateur radio in Germany in 1993 as DG4FEX, upgrading to a shortwave license shortly thereafter and becoming DH5FBT (a few mistook me for rare DX as D55FBT as my only mode was - and is - CW). A few months later and with the practice from real work on the bands in CW I passed my then still required 60cpm (12wpm) morse code test (straight key, no paddles allowed) to get to the highest German amateur class and become DL1FY.

I consider myself very lucky to have been educated as a CW operator in a local club that had and still has a lot of great ops as active members. Among them DL8IJ (then DL8MFJ), DM4IM (then DL1IAQ), DF2IC (FOC 1624) and DK8IT (FOC 1701) who helped me a lot in getting antennas set up and in becoming a better operator. I just can't thank you guys enough!

I was working the bands as much as I could until I got taken out of business by a direct lightning strike in 2001 while I was not at home. My lightning protection then was to unplug all the antennas while the station was not being used. That did not keep the lightning out of the shack though, it just arced over to the nearest ground, taking everything out in its path.

My rigs were fried and everything that contained a semiconductor in it. I never recovered from that in Germany.

When I immigrated to the States in 2008 (after working here since 2006) I moved the leftovers from my formerly proud shack to Arizona and pretty much started from scratch. I got my General license the same year as KF7BMA but never got on the bands with that call as other things kept me from building up a usable station. I was able to finish the Elecraft K3 kit though and reassembled my trusted Cushcraft AP8-A that I brought across the pond.

Finally, in 2011 I was able to catch up with amateur radio and passed my Extra class test and got the callsign AE7ON. That got me excited again and so I am currently hanging up wires and cables everywhere on the roof of the house to see if I still have it.

There's still a lot to do to get real antennas set up but the vertical is playing somewhat for now and just getting back into CW is so much fun that I wonder how I could have gone without it for so long.

Hope to see you around soon! And please bear with me while I am relearning proper code!

CWFE!

PS: I've uploaded a photo of my shack (as of September 2011). Devices set up are: Ameritron AL-811HX running on 240V to relieve the 120V circuit of the shack, MFJ- 989C 3kW tuner, Icom SP-20, Daiwa SWR meter 1.5kW, Ameritron QSK-5 switch, K3, AEA MM-3 Morse Machine, Vibro Bug, Begali Stradivarius and a Sony laptop for logging and DX cluster. All the RF equipment here except for the K3, the MM-3 and the QSK-5 survived the lightning strike and was brought over from Germany (yes, the AL-811HX survived the strike back then!).

Here's my Cushcraft AP-8A 8-band ground plane, which I also call the "Dummy Load". It's not *that* bad since I added about 25 tuned radials for the 8 different bands. 17m is still bad with an SWR of 1:6 which might indicate a blown trap. As this band works pretty good right now, I might just take this opportunity to build something particularly for this band! How about an HB9CV?

I just finished a J-Pole for 17m as an attempt to bypass the broken trap in the AP-8A. It works pretty well! Sizes were taken from DK7ZB publications. Resonance with 1:1.1 is around 17.7 MHz, so I'll take it down at some point and fine tune it but for now it's working ok at 1:1.4 at 18.07 MHz.

The wire is attached to the Jackkite of 31' length with cable ties. The wire is AWG 14 insulated and stranded. The match is done with wireman CQ556 450 Ohm ladder line. The fiberglass pole is unguyed and attached to the chimney with a TV chimney mount. The wind load seems to be minimal. We''ll see how it lives through a storm .

So far the J-Pole lived through hard weather pretty well. It automatically shortens itself when it's getting too windy by auto-collapsing the lower elements :-) All I have to do is notice the 1:2 SWR and go back up and extend it again.