Better GnuPG config ( ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf). Optionally set default key at the bottom of the file. Requires hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net pool to be setup.

gpg.conf

# Options for GnuPG
# Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
# 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
# This file is free software; as a special exception the author gives
# unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it, with or without
# modifications, as long as this notice is preserved.
#
# This file is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without even the
# implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#
# Unless you specify which option file to use (with the command line
# option "--options filename"), GnuPG uses the file ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
# by default.
#
# An options file can contain any long options which are available in
# GnuPG. If the first non white space character of a line is a '#',
# this line is ignored. Empty lines are also ignored.
#
# See the man page for a list of options.

# Uncomment the following option to get rid of the copyright notice

#no-greeting

# If you have more than 1 secret key in your keyring, you may want to
# uncomment the following option and set your preferred keyid.

#default-key 621CC013

# If you do not pass a recipient to gpg, it will ask for one. Using
# this option you can encrypt to a default key. Key validation will
# not be done in this case. The second form uses the default key as
# default recipient.

#default-recipient some-user-id
#default-recipient-self

# Use --encrypt-to to add the specified key as a recipient to all
# messages. This is useful, for example, when sending mail through a
# mail client that does not automatically encrypt mail to your key.
# In the example, this option allows you to read your local copy of
# encrypted mail that you've sent to others.

#encrypt-to some-key-id

# By default GnuPG creates version 4 signatures for data files as
# specified by OpenPGP. Some earlier (PGP 6, PGP 7) versions of PGP
# require the older version 3 signatures. Setting this option forces
# GnuPG to create version 3 signatures.

#force-v3-sigs

# Because some mailers change lines starting with "From " to ">From "
# it is good to handle such lines in a special way when creating
# cleartext signatures; all other PGP versions do it this way too.

#no-escape-from-lines

# If you do not use the Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) charset, you should tell
# GnuPG which is the native character set. Please check the man page
# for supported character sets. This character set is only used for
# metadata and not for the actual message which does not undergo any
# translation. Note that future version of GnuPG will change to UTF-8
# as default character set. In most cases this option is not required
# as GnuPG is able to figure out the correct charset at runtime.

#charset utf-8

# Group names may be defined like this:
# group mynames = paige 0x12345678 joe patti
#
# Any time "mynames" is a recipient (-r or --recipient), it will be
# expanded to the names "paige", "joe", and "patti", and the key ID
# "0x12345678". Note there is only one level of expansion - you
# cannot make an group that points to another group. Note also that
# if there are spaces in the recipient name, this will appear as two
# recipients. In these cases it is better to use the key ID.

#group mynames = paige 0x12345678 joe patti

# Lock the file only once for the lifetime of a process. If you do
# not define this, the lock will be obtained and released every time
# it is needed, which is usually preferable.

#lock-once

# GnuPG can send and receive keys to and from a keyserver. These
# servers can be HKP, email, or LDAP (if GnuPG is built with LDAP
# support).
#
# Example HKP keyserver:
# hkp://keys.gnupg.net
# hkp://subkeys.pgp.net
#
# Example email keyserver:
# mailto:[email protected]
#
# Example LDAP keyservers:
# ldap://keyserver.pgp.com
#
# Regular URL syntax applies, and you can set an alternate port
# through the usual method:
# hkp://keyserver.example.net:22742
#
# Most users just set the name and type of their preferred keyserver.
# Note that most servers (with the notable exception of
# ldap://keyserver.pgp.com) synchronize changes with each other. Note
# also that a single server name may actually point to multiple
# servers via DNS round-robin. hkp://keys.gnupg.net is an example of
# such a "server", which spreads the load over a number of physical
# servers. To see the IP address of the server actually used, you may use
# the "--keyserver-options debug".

##keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net
#keyserver mailto:[email protected]
#keyserver ldap://keyserver.pgp.com

# Common options for keyserver functions:
#
# include-disabled : when searching, include keys marked as "disabled"
# on the keyserver (not all keyservers support this).
#
# no-include-revoked : when searching, do not include keys marked as
# "revoked" on the keyserver.
#
# verbose : show more information as the keys are fetched.
# Can be used more than once to increase the amount
# of information shown.
#
# use-temp-files : use temporary files instead of a pipe to talk to the
# keyserver. Some platforms (Win32 for one) always
# have this on.
#
# keep-temp-files : do not delete temporary files after using them
# (really only useful for debugging)
#
# http-proxy="proxy" : set the proxy to use for HTTP and HKP keyservers.
# This overrides the "http_proxy" environment variable,
# if any.
#
# auto-key-retrieve : automatically fetch keys as needed from the keyserver
# when verifying signatures or when importing keys that
# have been revoked by a revocation key that is not
# present on the keyring.
#
# no-include-attributes : do not include attribute IDs (aka "photo IDs")
# when sending keys to the keyserver.

#keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve

# Display photo user IDs in key listings

# list-options show-photos

# Display photo user IDs when a signature from a key with a photo is
# verified

# verify-options show-photos

# Use this program to display photo user IDs
#
# %i is expanded to a temporary file that contains the photo.
# %I is the same as %i, but the file isn't deleted afterwards by GnuPG.
# %k is expanded to the key ID of the key.
# %K is expanded to the long OpenPGP key ID of the key.
# %t is expanded to the extension of the image (e.g. "jpg").
# %T is expanded to the MIME type of the image (e.g. "image/jpeg").
# %f is expanded to the fingerprint of the key.
# %% is %, of course.
#
# If %i or %I are not present, then the photo is supplied to the
# viewer on standard input. If your platform supports it, standard
# input is the best way to do this as it avoids the time and effort in
# generating and then cleaning up a secure temp file.
#
# If no photo-viewer is provided, GnuPG will look for xloadimage, eog,
# or display (ImageMagick). On Mac OS X and Windows, the default is
# to use your regular JPEG image viewer.
#
# Some other viewers:
# photo-viewer "qiv %i"
# photo-viewer "ee %i"
#
# This one saves a copy of the photo ID in your home directory:
# photo-viewer "cat > ~/photoid-for-key-%k.%t"
#
# Use your MIME handler to view photos:
# photo-viewer "metamail -q -d -b -c %T -s 'KeyID 0x%k' -f GnuPG"

# Passphrase agent
#
# We support the old experimental passphrase agent protocol as well as
# the new Assuan based one (currently available in the "newpg" package
# at ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/alpha/aegypten/). To make use of the agent,
# you have to run an agent as daemon and use the option
#
# For Ubuntu we now use-agent by default to support more automatic
# use of GPG and S/MIME encryption by GUI programs. Depending on the
# program, users may still have to manually decide to install gnupg-agent.

##use-agent

# which tries to use the agent but will fallback to the regular mode
# if there is a problem connecting to the agent. The normal way to
# locate the agent is by looking at the environment variable
# GPG_AGENT_INFO which should have been set during gpg-agent startup.
# In certain situations the use of this variable is not possible, thus
# the option
#
# --gpg-agent-info=<path>:<pid>:1
#
# may be used to override it.

# Automatic key location
#
# GnuPG can automatically locate and retrieve keys as needed using the
# auto-key-locate option. This happens when encrypting to an email
# address (in the "[email protected]" form), and there are no
# [email protected] keys on the local keyring. This option takes the
# following arguments, in the order they are to be tried:
#
# cert = locate a key using DNS CERT, as specified in RFC-4398.
# GnuPG can handle both the PGP (key) and IPGP (URL + fingerprint)
# CERT methods.
#
# pka = locate a key using DNS PKA.
#
# ldap = locate a key using the PGP Universal method of checking
# "ldap://keys.(thedomain)". For example, encrypting to
# [email protected] will check ldap://keys.example.com.
#
# keyserver = locate a key using whatever keyserver is defined using
# the keyserver option.
#
# You may also list arbitrary keyservers here by URL.
#
# Try CERT, then PKA, then LDAP, then hkp://subkeys.net:
#auto-key-locate cert pka ldap hkp://subkeys.pgp.net
##Use a hkps pool as my keyserver
keyserver hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net

##Define a path to where the pool's certificate can be found since this cert may not be in the system by default
###https://sks-keyservers.net/overview-of-pools.php to download cert file and verification info
###https://sks-keyservers.net/verify_tls.php
keyserver-options ca-cert-file=/etc/ssl/certs/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem

#Ignore any keyservers pointed to by a key so hkps (the pool set above) will always be used
keyserver-options no-honor-keyserver-url

#don't forget implied cipher, digest, and compression preferences that will be auto added if not explicitly set https://www.gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/OpenPGP-Key-Management.html
personal-cipher-preferences AES256,AES192,AES
personal-digest-preferences SHA512,SHA384,SHA256

#use SHA512 when signing keys
cert-digest-algo SHA512

#tell the world my keys require something from this list be used
default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 AES256 AES192 AES ZLIB ZIP Uncompressed

# Tell GPG to try using GnuPG-Agent before asking for a passphrase.
use-agent

# Do not automatically locate and retrieve keys as needed
no-auto-key-locate

#Hide the version string in ASCII armored output
no-emit-version

#Do not merge primary user ID and primary key in --with-colon listing mode and print all timestamps as seconds since 1970-01-01
fixed-list-mode

#Show the 16-character key ID with 0x before it
keyid-format 0xlong

#Display the calculated validity of the user IDs on the key that issued the signature and during key listings
verify-options show-uid-validity
list-options show-uid-validity

#Set default-key
# default-key 0x0000000000000000

HKPS Pool Setup

# Verify TLS at https://sks-keyservers.net/verify_tls.php

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/gpg/hkps
cd ~/Downloads/gpg/hkps
curl -L https://sks-keyservers.net/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem -O
curl -L https://sks-keyservers.net/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem.asc -O

#import key for HKPS signature
gpg --recv-key 0x0B7F8B60E3EDFAE3

#verify HKPS cert
gpg --verify sks-keyservers.netCA.pem.asc

#move hkps pool cert to cert store
sudo cp -v sks-keyservers.netCA.pem /etc/ssl/certs/

#gnupg-curl is needed to support hkps on Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get  install gnupg-curl