Lots of change and Hearbreak.

The last couple of months has been very difficult for me, the breakup of my marriage to the love of my life after 25 years has forced me to take stock and also look to the future, I decided to start afresh and try and clear as much of my debt as possible so I pretty much sold all of my equipment, my lovely 7700, 7600, 7300 and others, strangely the only radio I kept was my little FT-817ND, now as an Icom fanboy ive always loved the little Yaesu.

I also put up for sale a lot of anciliary kit and also quite a few of my antennas but I didnt remove my current little antenna farm, ive been a ham for 35 years its not just a hobby its a lifestyle and something I love so I wasnt about to give up totally, ive since picked up a little IC-7000 (ive had a few of these fabulous little radios) so for the moment im able to get on the air, I think the plan is to save some money and also let a few more bits and bobs go and maybe get one nice radio and that will be it, no more shack full of gear, ive pretty much settled on an IC-7610 as the radio that I will buy but for now the little IC-7000 and the little FT-817ND will be my shack, I previously had a 2nd hand 7610 but stupidly let it go, anyway thats the plan, a simple 2 radio shack, 7610 and the 7000 with the little 817 being used for /m in the car and any portable stuff, i take it to the workshop with me as well and do a bit of 10m QRP as I have the 3 El 10m LFA up.

I had recently decided to put up my 9 Element 2m LFA antenna thats been sitting in the shed for a few years so ive now put that up to complete the little antenna farm, ive done very little 2m stuff in my 30 odd years so looking forward to seeing how it works, luckily im able to use either the IC-7000 with 50w or the little FT-817 with 5w

So thats my little update, no idea if anyone will even read it but there you go, I will be back, my priorities are now my children but my Amateur Radio is the only other outlet I have or want, its keeping me sane and hopefully I might have saved enough pennies by the end of the year for that 7610.

Conditions initially seemed to be picking up recently but seem to have taken a dive again with the SFI dropping down to levels from earlier in the year, at least were on the up as far as the sunspot cycle is concerned.

So my plan now is to immerse myself in work from now on, something ive just not had my head in for the last month or so, too be honest im not sure where my head. has been in the last couple of months, get some more money behind me and crack on with life, its all I can do

I know this is supposed to be a radio blog so apologies for the slightly personal nature of this one.

Its not easy, I miss her every day.

Onwards and Upwards, allegedly.

As you will already know by previous posts, I dont have a big station, either at home or at my workshop, during work breaks im slowly renovating a 30 year old Jaybeam TB3 3 Element Tribander, its cleaning up remarkably well and internally the traps look brand new even after all this time, I wont ever be able to erect it a s a 3 element but im going to try and put it up as a 2 Element tibander on an 8ft boom, I may or may not get away with it at home, yesterday I put up the driven element of the TB3 on a temp scaffold pole at about 20ft, just using it as a rotary dipole, just reallly to have a play and see how it performed versus the R7000 vertical I use at the workshop, literally about 5 minutes after I put it up I saw a spot for Brad VK2BY on the cluster and tuned to his frequency not really expecting to hear much if anything, much to my surprise Brad was 58/59 signal even without any preamps on the HF radio turned on, I rarely use the preamp in any radio below 15m

Brad finished with the current qso he was having and I threw my call in, he came back asking for the G0 and back I went, it took a couple of times as others were calling over me but Brad persisted and we enjoyed a few overs, surprisingly I was given a 55/56 report, to say that made my day was an understatement, all on 100w and a rotary dipole at 20ft, after being licensed over 30 years I still get a buzz when I manage a long distance DX QSO, love this Amateur Radio lark 🙂