Heyya Tall !
With the general class ticket try to find a all mode HF radio of some kind that covers 160 to 10 meters..$300 to $500 should get you into a radio,an antenna tuner of some kind and a simple dipole antenna that covers at least part of the HF bands will get you all the action you will crave.
the antenna.....if it were me I would stay away from the G5RV type of antenna,not very effective ..it was really made for 20 meters ...go with an off center fed windom/dipole or a fan dipole ....I have an off center fed that a built in tuner with the radio will tune ,under a 3 to 1 swr on all bands I run...Fan dipole will have a radial for each band that is resonate for that band,usually no tuner needed
10 meters has been pretty quiet ,I do hear it open once in a while,but it is a hit and miss thing
12 meters is about the same as 10 but when it is open there are some pretty good contacts to be made
15 meters is doing pretty well,hearing stations from all over the states and a few from Europe/South America
17 meters is really good ( and my favorite band ) opens up about 7 to 8 AM my time ( centeral time zone ) and is open till after dark most every day ...I do hear Europe/Africa/Russia in the mornings and fading to stateside midday for the most part and long path to Europe/Russia as well as Japan during the evenings till band fades
20 ...well it is a nuthouse for me really strong stateside stations and is open till well after dark and alot of the time is open late night
30 ...is a CW/digital band ,no voice allowed , and will be open 24/7 alot of the time
40 .... for me is somewhat a night time band ..when it is open it is really open world wide contacts are possable,....during day time good regional stateside stations and several nets to check into
80.....for me also night time ....alot of nets to check into here as well off and on throughout the early morning and late afternoon ...the two nets I try to check into are on 3.987.5 starting at about 5:30AM cenetral and again in the evening with prechecks starting again at about 5:30 PM( the 3987.5 nets are the same bunch,Centeral States Traffic Net ( morning) and The Arkansas razorback Net ( afternoons)... and 3.916 starting at about 8 PM centeral till whenever ..The Tailgaters /Freewheelers nets
160...I cant really say since my antenna dont like 160 meters
There is my run down for the bands I run for what it is worth.
Hope to hear you on the air soon !!
Chris
edit...
as I am posting this I hit the 20 meter button,hearing Italy,Africa and South America fairly strong at 2:15 AM
Yet another edit :
man I hate it when I cant sleep.
OK I looked at your first post again.I see you have VHF/UHF radios.... Have a look at radioreference.com ,they have almost every vhf/uhf repeater in the country listed there .Go to their site,click on your state,then county,then the amateur radio tab....if no repeaters in your county start moving out from your county.I can almost promise you there are repeaters not very far away from you,program those into your radios and then start listening,most of the repeaters will have a net of some kind .Check into those nets to get your call sign out there and before ya know it you will be chatting away...and try to get a HF radio when the dollars will allow it,then you will be spoiled
