@coley65, What you need to do now is decided what cards you want to. If the card you have is full you are in a good posistion to get what you want as that card is pretty popular. Dont make the mistake of accepting peolple on the server with cards you dont want so i suggest you go for a german, italian, nordic to start.
How it works is that you go to a certain forum and look at what people have as there local cards then pick which card you need (make sure its full package though) then send them a pm to see if they would like to exchange with you. Worth trying to get people who will be on msn so its easier to contact etc. The you enter you line like normal and then check to see their card is what they say it is.
If you decide to do this i highly recommend you use cccaminfophp, this used to be installed on the server but you can install it on your pc now which connects to the server (cccaminfophp win 3.2.) It will give you loads of info so you can see whos using you card and what ecm time your card is giving etc.
Few things to consider you say you have 5 mates will these want to use your gathered shares? The standard reshare is { 0:0:2 } so you would need 2 of each card to cover them if they want to watch at the same time. You would have to give this in return so its a bit of a balancing act at first but you will find some take full advantage of your card and some never seem to use it. This is where cccaminfophp comes in you can see who is using your card a bit to much.
Hope this gives you a rough idea mate.
Si