I know it might be difficult to convince some people of this, but I love amateur radio.
I love building radios (I’ve built two), building antennas (I’ve built several), and making contacts (I’ve made a few of those, too). It doesn’t matter whether it’s SSB, FM, FT8, FT4, or even CW (I’m still waiting to make my first AM contact)—I genuinely enjoy this hobby.
But one of the things I enjoy most is the experimentation. There is just something fun about taking a piece of equipment and figuring out what you can make it do. For example, I recently modified a little Quansheng UV-K1 handheld so that it could transmit and receive CW. It wasn’t exactly what the radio was designed for, but that was part of the fun. Amateur radio gives you plenty of opportunities to tinker, experiment, try something different, and occasionally ask yourself, “I wonder if this will actually work?”
But you may be asking, “Why on earth would anyone want to do 2-meter CW on a handheld?” Well, I’m glad you asked. And to answer that, I have to go back a few weeks.
You see, during the OSPOTA Contest, I got to spend some time with Conor, KF8CNK. We were the only two members of the K8BSR club who knew CW, so we spent the day in our own shelter, making contacts—me on 40 meters and him on 20 meters.
It was a lot of fun, and we talked between contacts. During one of those conversations, Conor told me about a new kind of radio club. Well, “gang” actually.
It’s called the Brass Knuckle Gang (BKG), and it was started by a YouTuber named Forrest, KI7QCF, out of Utah. Forrest is an avid CW operator and a great advocate for bringing younger people into the hobby. Out of his love for CW, SOTA, and POTA, he decided to create a “gang” built around making contacts on 2 meters.
And this is where the fun—and my Quansheng UV-K1 modification—comes in.
In order to join—or, as they accurately put it, to get “jumped” into the gang—you have to make a 2-meter CW contact with an existing BKG member. Once the contact is made, the existing member submits the QSO to BKG, and the new “homie” receives a unique BKG number.
Obviously, Forrest was the originator and holds #1. I soon learned that my “homie,” Conor, is the OH OG—the Ohio Original—and holds BKG #15.
The idea of making 2-meter CW contacts, combined with the sheer fun of the group, convinced me that I needed to get in on it. So I purchased a Quansheng UV-K1, modified it to do CW, flashed it with open-source firmware, and BOOM—I had a fun little project ready to test out.
So Conor and I met at Mary Jane Thurston State Park, made a 2-meter contact, he submitted the QSO, and just like that, I was officially jumped into the gang.
I am now proudly carrying BKG #525.
I’ve had a lot of fun with this already, and one of the things I’m looking forward to most is being able to jump other hams into the gang myself. That’s really what makes amateur radio so much fun. It’s not just about the radios, antennas, modes, or contacts. It’s about experimenting, learning something new, and—perhaps most importantly—the people you meet along the way.
So, if you’re interested in getting jumped into the Brass Knuckle Gang, just ask. I’d be glad to get the boys together, fire up the 2-meter rigs, and make you an official homie.
Because, at the end of the day, that’s what I love about amateur radio. There is always another radio to build, another antenna to try, another mode to learn, another contact to make—and, if you’re lucky, another friend waiting on the other end of the radio.
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