Quote:
Originally posted by millerdog
How did I miss this post?
If I had voice in the "general" class bands I would still be active! I am a grandfathered "Tech."
Talking on the radio is in no way like doing this internet thing. I miss hearing live voices, skip and the watery sound of CW coming off the north pole.
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I read one of your posts awhile ago, in which you mentioned your antenna had been damaged in a windstorm and your transceiver itself was out of service. If you miss ham radio as much as you say, why not repair your inverted vee (or put up a new one, or an antenna of different configuration such as a dipole, G5RV, etc.), have your radio repaired, and get back on the air? Even as Technician Plus you can run CW in the Novice bands, SSB phone on 10 meters, and of course all modes in VHF bands from 6 meters up through microwaves.
I have a General license and worked CW mostly on 80 and 30 meters (using four different rigs over the years) from my previous residence, as I stated in a previous post. I moved from a three-bedroom house in a Cleveland suburb to an apartment in a small northeastern Ohio town four years ago; like yourself, I missed ham radio, the thrill of making all those nice DX contacts and all, since I didn't think I could get back on the air (my lease has a clause in it forbidding any kind of attachments to window sills, etc., which pretty much squashed the idea of my putting an antenna on one of the sills outside the apartment--besides, there are no windows in my bedroom, where my ham shack is).
However, I wasn't about to give up the hobby, as I am about to explain. I was off the air (except for 2 meters and experiments with an MFJ indoor antenna that didn't work worth a darn) for fully three years before getting a new indoor all-band HF antenna (Barker & Williamson AP10A) for my 100-watt rig. The new antenna works after a fashion (as I mentioned in my response to crooner's post); I've worked a couple stations on 40 SSB, but they were both within the county in which I live (which isn't that big to begin with--I am in Lake County, the smallest of Ohio's 88 counties; I live in a small town with few local hams, so I must rely on contacts I have within a local radio club of which I am a member for help with rig or antenna problems, etc.).
Oh, well. Perhaps I'll fire up my setup on 10, 15 or 12 meters (not 30, as I have been told a 51" antenna, even with a loading coil, is much too short for that band), one of the real DX bands that aren't plagued by foreign-broadcast interference after sundown. I don't know how bad a problem that is in Hawaii, where you are, but here in the midwest it's terrible. I can't even use much of 40 meters after dark because of all that garbage, though heaven knows I've tried.
73,