More progress hamming it up

It's been a while. That's me really.

I finally received my license at the end of October. Within minutes I was (trying) to transmit FT8.. then I realised that I needed to make a custom cable to feed the audio back into the G90. Half an hour later and that was sorted. 

First 2 FT8 QSOs were DX. Not a bad start out the gate.

To date I honestly haven't done much voice. A couple of quick ragchews on a local repeater. I was called out on a local HF net, but sadly the G90 was setup for digital and I couldn't quickly recall how to flick it over to the mic input. 

I need to do more. I've at least started announcing myself on the local repeater daily during the week. I usually get left hanging, but it's a start. 

I did try calling CQ over the weekend during a busy period just to see how I'd go. Wasn't heard, and most of who I could hear were running stupid power so the hope of me getting them was low.

Moving forward:

I've put a Yaesu FTM-400XDR in the car. It replaces the Baofeng UV-5Re that was in there connected to the external antenna that was constantly getting intermod and was otherwise overloaded. The APRS works well, even at 5w. Yet to announce on the local repeater and actually get a response out of anyone with it. It receives fine, and it does key up the repeater. 

Yaesu FTM-400XDR. Now in car and getting not much use.

 

I've nabbed an old Icom IC-706mkIIg. Waiting for it to arrive. Hoping to use that as my main shack rig, and keep the G90 for digital. I'm a little over the RT95 - it keeps flicking the power up to medium above my power limit, and I just don't really like it. It may have a future scanning. 

The vertical is still in use - having trouble beating it with FT8. I've since pulled down the inverted L and put up the trapped dipole to see how it compares... at least at 40m. Surprisingly.. it's a little noisy compared to the vertical. I had to throw up a balun to get it resonant. That should hopefully make the IC-706 usable until the tuner arrives.  I've been debating getting a trapped dipole for 80m, which will extend from the house to the back fence. I may need more height. Possibly having a section that isn't sandwiched between houses might help too.

I've concluded though that I still have too much RFI in the shack - there are nearby hams using dipoles that are hearing entire conversations I'm hearing one side of. I do have a lot of RFI causing gear around me, so that would stand to reason. Big bag of clip on ferrites in transit to see if I can cut some of the noise down.  Hopefully this might help me in pursuit of hearing more than I am now. If I could hear more than 75% of the local HF nets, I'd even consider getting involved.

I did invest in the Radio & Electronics School (res.net.au) Standard Course so I can push on with upgrading my license. My ego is sick of seeing the Foundation jabs by various individuals, I'm sick of the bits I don't understand but need to, and it's a new challenge.