And sadly not the weight type of slimming down (although could do with that as well) Covid and the Pandemic has had a dramatic effect on my finances this year, ive been self employed for a good number of years now and for the last few ive been working 2 jobs, my primary work has been photography, primarily wedding but pretty much any genre of photography and my other job is working for Innovantennas building a vast array of different type of antennas for Amateur and Commerical, sadly due to Covid my photography work has come to an abrupt halt with no photography work this year at all to that end my income has dropped significantly and although ive been struggling through the time has come to make some sacrifices as far as my radio equipment is concerned.
Amateur radio is one of those things you will lose interest in every now and then but will come back to it, for me thats definatley been the case over the 30 odd years ive been licensed, I had a few years away from about 2010 and never really came back until 2017, unfortunately this time around the hobby took hold a little bit tighter than in the past and its become as it has been in the past more than a hobby but a lifestyle choice, I have come back into the hobby with the enthusiasm I had in the late 80s when I first got licensed, anyway I digress. so jump forward a few years to the present day I have luckily managed to do very well in my wheeling and dealing to buy mostly 2nd hand equipment and have amassed quite a bit of kit in the last few years well 2020 has been a wake up call as far as family and finances go so I sat down and thought do I really need all of this or do I just want it, of course the answer was the latter, anyway to make a very long story a bit shorter ive decided to slim down my equipment, ive started with my workshop where I had a lovely Icom IC-7000 and the matching LDG auto atu, a fabulous bit of kit but sadly I had to say goodbye to it this week, I still have the little Yaesu FT-100D that got me back into the hobby about 4 years ago and out of the two of them the Icom was worth the most money so much to my dismay its now gone.
I wont dwell on it as it pisses me off to think about it but my family and finances really have to come first, the little FT-100D is a nice little radio but not in the same league as the IC-7000 but needs must and I have to do what I have to do, ive also amassed a fair few antennas in my arsenal so again they will be slimmed down along with lots of ancillary equipment such as ATUs, meters etc etc, I have also slimmed down the main shack as well, more to come about that.
Anyway enough of my woes, to be fair I worked some nice stuff on my little FT-100D when I came back on the air so now thats shes out of retirement I hope she will be good to me again.