Let the rest of us "Ham's" know what you purchased with your $2000.00. This way we can salivate a little.
73's
Bernie KD2JYU
Nice to meet you, fellas! I'd kinda forgotten I had started this topic, and it's nice to hear there are other Hams in this group.
Update - On Dec 2, I took and passed all three exams in one sitting, earning myself an Extra ticket. Just got my call sign issued last week, AJ6AR. Just might keep that one since AR is the first two initials in my name (also stands for "Amateur Radio" :)
The "F Cee Cee" no longer issues paper licenses but my wife is getting my CSCE framed:
Also, you might be interested in the article I found that ran in our home town paper when I first earned my Novice license in 1962:
Today, we're heading to Oakland in the SF Bay Area on a Christmas shopping trip to a Ham Radio Outlet warehouse. Wife said I can spend $2,000 to get my rig and antennas set up. Looking to get an ICOM 7300 as the centerpiece.
Let the rest of us "Ham's" know what you purchased with your $2000.00. This way we can salivate a little.
73's
Bernie KD2JYU
Hi Bernie,
I came back with an ICOM 7300 HF Transceiver, an ICOM 2730A 2 meter/70 cm mobile, a Buckmaster OCF multi-band dipole, a Diamond 510HDX vertical, and a 30 amp power supply. Misc cables, dacron rope and tensioners, remote control software, and other install bits and pieces.
Blew right past my budget ceiling. Glad my wife wasn't with me :D
El Dorado Netwo wrote:
I came back with an ICOM 7300 HF Transceiver, an ICOM 2730A 2 meter/70 cm mobile, ... remote control software, ...
Hopefully ICOM's software is better than it used to be. One of the reasons why I made Smart Icom Control some years back for the R72. Their method of receiver addressing and command codes were not very straightforward to implement, either.
Hello All,
Thought I'd give you an update. Finally got my station up and running in early February after chasing my tail for three weeks trying to track down a problem with my new rigs. Turns out I had bought a Powerwerx switching power supply that was bad right out of the box. It would light up my receivers but was not putting out enough amps on transmit to get anywhere, or trigger repeaters on 2 meters.
Last time I was on the radio in the 60s, there was so much less noise and so many more stations that I could pick up with just a simple dipole strung along the edge of my parents' roof. I thought at first there was something else wrong with my new setup until someone pointed out that the sunspot cycle was at a 400-year high during the late 50s/early 60s, and there wer far fewer devices back then causing noise: computers, wall warts, dimmers, grow lights, wireless routers, smart phones, smart everything.
I've been busy stomping out local noise problems, apparently some due to my OCF inverted V antenna. I put up a 520' loop antenna (cut for a full wavelength on 160 meters) connected to an ICOM AH-4 remote tuner with a piece of ladder line so I can take it multi-band. Wow! Noise dropped about 3 - 5 S units across the HF bands and suddenly I'm hearing stations I could not hear before on the OCF.
I'm mainly active on 80, 40, and 160 Meters in the mornings and evenings, and learning how to work local 2 meter repeaters. Soon to go mobile.
I had contacted our local newspaper, the Mountain Democrat, to see if I could get a better photo for that story they ran in 1962. They became interested, and ran another story two weeks ago: https://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/alan-thompson-is-still-a-ham/.
You can read my profile here, with links to both articles: http://www.aj6ar.com/
