23-10-2023, 03:06 PM
In early 2022 my partner had to go and stay with her mum after she had a fall and broke the very top of her left arm, so there I am, 8 weeks or more of being a bachelor again while my lovely partner is caring for her 93 year old mum.
The routine starts, get home from work, let the chook out, feed the horse, get the dogs dinners ready and ... and what now?
A chance glance at the spots in VKspotter showed people were making contacts on 28 MHz, hmm maybe I can have a look there to give me a challenge after dinner is done as its very quiet on SIX and TWO right now.
Now I am the worlds worst HF DXer and my idea of an antenna for HF is a very old OCF dipole plus a trapped 80/40/20 dipole of the side of the tower. Luckily for me the OCF dipole works okay on 28 MHz and so off we go on 28 MHz FT8 with my max power of 100W from the IC-7600 (I have no AMP for HF contrary to what some might say).
As luck would have it 28MHz is on the boil each night of the first week I start looking and start accumulating a few good contacts on 10mx but find the colour scheme in the software is not good for picking out interesting stations.
After a few trials of different packages I found that the much maligned WSTJ-Z has a fantastic highlighting scheme and ties into QRZ for getting added info about the station being worked. Woo Hoo contacts start to roll in and my log is bulging at the seams with LOTW confirmations rolling in (thanks to the Log4OM logging software's automation)
So how did I do over the 8 weeks? At the end of the 8th week I had worked and confirmed via LOTW 98 countries, built myself a small 5 element yagi for 28 MHz and started getting up early before work to catch long path into Europe.
After reaching a country count of 105 on 28 MHz by the end of the 11th week, I moved to 18 MHz thinking I would try all the WARC bands, 18MHz was a lot of fun and can highly recommend you take a look there. By now my partner was home and life was returning to normal so my activity was less of a frenzy and more a casual look.
24 MHz has been a long slog and I am still stuck in the mid 90's before I started to look at 10 MHz, which is active but may take a while to do any good on.
While it may not be everyone's idea of good fun, I must admit I have had a lot of fun on HF, which is a place I do not often venture onto and enjoyed the challenge on 28 MHz, so instead of the TV or Netflix try a deep dive on ONE band and see how you go.
Summer is nearly here and 28 MHz should be on the boil already, go and enjoy yourself and be "radio active" it sure changed my out look on the HF bands.
The routine starts, get home from work, let the chook out, feed the horse, get the dogs dinners ready and ... and what now?
A chance glance at the spots in VKspotter showed people were making contacts on 28 MHz, hmm maybe I can have a look there to give me a challenge after dinner is done as its very quiet on SIX and TWO right now.
Now I am the worlds worst HF DXer and my idea of an antenna for HF is a very old OCF dipole plus a trapped 80/40/20 dipole of the side of the tower. Luckily for me the OCF dipole works okay on 28 MHz and so off we go on 28 MHz FT8 with my max power of 100W from the IC-7600 (I have no AMP for HF contrary to what some might say).
As luck would have it 28MHz is on the boil each night of the first week I start looking and start accumulating a few good contacts on 10mx but find the colour scheme in the software is not good for picking out interesting stations.
After a few trials of different packages I found that the much maligned WSTJ-Z has a fantastic highlighting scheme and ties into QRZ for getting added info about the station being worked. Woo Hoo contacts start to roll in and my log is bulging at the seams with LOTW confirmations rolling in (thanks to the Log4OM logging software's automation)
So how did I do over the 8 weeks? At the end of the 8th week I had worked and confirmed via LOTW 98 countries, built myself a small 5 element yagi for 28 MHz and started getting up early before work to catch long path into Europe.
After reaching a country count of 105 on 28 MHz by the end of the 11th week, I moved to 18 MHz thinking I would try all the WARC bands, 18MHz was a lot of fun and can highly recommend you take a look there. By now my partner was home and life was returning to normal so my activity was less of a frenzy and more a casual look.
24 MHz has been a long slog and I am still stuck in the mid 90's before I started to look at 10 MHz, which is active but may take a while to do any good on.
While it may not be everyone's idea of good fun, I must admit I have had a lot of fun on HF, which is a place I do not often venture onto and enjoyed the challenge on 28 MHz, so instead of the TV or Netflix try a deep dive on ONE band and see how you go.
Summer is nearly here and 28 MHz should be on the boil already, go and enjoy yourself and be "radio active" it sure changed my out look on the HF bands.