Ham Radio – a hobby that is enjoyed by many – and endured by their family, friends and neighbours.

I got my ticket in 2001 followed by the Morse test which was needed to get onto HF in those days – But my initial interest was VHF “square-chasing” and it wasn’t until about 8-years in when I started operating on HF.  Going “portable” with an FT817 at the local village green with a decent bit of wire in the air made short work of my paper logbook!

Although getting those juicy DX stations makes my logbook stats look pretty, I’m happy to have a chat if conditions allow – if I’m on CW, I usually call at around 18wpm but will QRS if asked.

Aerials include:

• 160m Inverted-L (seasonal) – 9m up, ~30m long over 40 buried radials varying 10-20m each
• 80m Doublet @ 30ft – can be switched to a 160m “Tee” fed against some ground radials
• 80m End-Fed Halfwave – presents a low SWR on most bands
• 20m Loop @ 15ft – Runs around the roof of the Shack/Workshop
• 6m 3-ele LFA Yagi (seasonal) – 15-20ft and rotated by “Armstrong“
• VHF/UHF “White-Stick” – for the local riff-raff

I do very little Portable these days as my home QTH is now a decent size and RF-quiet.  If I do venture out /P, I’ll typically be using a 40m Doublet and a Slim-Jim for 2m.

How are the bands?  I often use the NOAA website to see how HF is looking – if there’s a colourful “splodge” (what I like to call a Jackson Pollock) on the map then things may not be good.  The Solar Levels here also give a good indication as to conditions.