My amateur radio interests are expanding
As retirement looms, so does the prospect of spending more time on radio communications!
Retirement looms
I am facing retirement. That sounds like a death knell, and in fact, I’ve seen it play out that way on occasion with family and friends. This contemplation of a momentous change is challenging to me because, like with so many other people, part of my identity is tied to what I do. Take away what I do and then who will remain, I wonder.
Amateur radio was a way for me to address my love of technology, to touch the magic I felt when I heard astronauts talking to people on Earth, and help me learn to be a bit less introverted. Amateur radio has rewarded me in all these contexts.
Radio interests
In the car, I monitor various VHF and UHF repeaters. I really like my Kenwood TM-D710G radio. (And in truth, I’d like to buy another one!) I monitor repeaters on one side of the radio while APRS simultaneously tracks my position. Voice quality is very good. And while the radio can be a bit complicated to get set up, once configured, it just works.
On the HF bands, I’m beginning to enjoy Parks On The Air, or POTA. I’m thinking that POTA will give me a good excuse to visit many parks and to exercise my radio hobby.
My home station is a Yaesu FT-450D rig, but for POTA, I have a Yaesu FT-891. The 891 is a great piece of kit, and if Yaesu could put VHF/UHF and a tuner in it, I think it would become an incredible radio. I note that the digital noise reduction (DNR) on the 891 works much better than the DSP on the 450D, but it is easier to notch out noise on the 450D than on the 891.
I am having trouble with FT8. It works for me on the 450D, using a Signalink USB device as an external sound card for the computer. On the 891, I have not been able to get the receive decibels in WSJT-X high enough for the signal to be decoded. It works on the 450D but not on the 891. I don’t know if that is something going on in my particular 891 radio or not but I’m still investigating (translation: I am continuing to try everything I can find on the Internet about this problem).
Longer term, I’d like to get involved in Summits On The Air (SOTA) as a way to exercise my body and my radio hobby. I’d also like to learn Morse Code. While I tried to do this in Boy Scouts so many years ago, it just didn’t click with me at the time. I tried again about ten years ago and it still didn’t quite click. I will be giving Morse Code one more try in the coming months.
This blog is simply a place for me to capture some of my thoughts…mainly about radio, but sometimes about the other things in life that may (or may not) intersect with radio.