I took another hiatus from ham radio but fired things up again recently.
I keep spending money on equipment that I don’t use.
I’m trying to muster up the interest in 2m/440, but I just can’t seem to do it.
I’ve checked into a few local nets, but I don’t have much to share.
I’m looking at winlink and Vara FM but haven’t made a move on this front.
I’m still trying to get some HF CW going… I can call CQ for 5 min straight and never get a reply. But jump on FT8, and I’m working the world, literally.
10m has been on fire lately. I’ve heard a lot of SSB voice comms but only managed a few short QSOs with people in the US. Finally had someone come back to me on a CW CQ last weekend.
Meanwhile, FT4 and FT8 is hitting Japan like magic in the late afternoons. Along with Hungary, Brazil, Russia, and Ukraine.
My antenna situation is still marginal. I’m starting to think my 10m vertical is garbage. I can switch between my homemade dipole and my pro 10m vertical, and the signals are always better on the dipole. I strung up another dipole with a north-south orientation and connected it to my little Xiegu G90 but haven’t tried it yet.
I bought a mobile rig to put in the car, a poor choice impulse buy of a TYT TH-9800D quad-band (10/6/2/70cm) FM rig. Honestly, I’m not sure what value 10m and 6m have when they can only work in FM mode. I put a magnount on the car but haven’t permanently installed the rig as I’m just not sure where to put it or how to pull the power through the firewall without making a mess.
I still haven’t tested out the two RadioShack 10m rigs I bought on eBay like 2 years ago. An HTX-10 and an HTX-100. The HTX-100 might be fun to take mobile to do some CW or SSB work.