Hi Decula,
Nice to see an Okie on the Homestead.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
Do you have any pics of your set up you currently have?
My dad was an old ham operator. He had a thirty foot antena he would crank up before he would turn his base unit on. I can remember talking to a guy in New York once. I remember once he was trying to reach over seas so he added an extention to his antena and some other devices, I do not know what exactly, to have more power to transmitting and receiving. Everytime he turned it on we would get all kinds of calls for all the enterference he was causing with TV's and radios.
Take care,
Wade