After being QRT for many years a was talked into taking up this hobby again end of 2020. The official reason was to help SK0CT win the NAC-2020... Which we did... SK0CT also won the next year, the NAC-2021 competition both the full year and every month. This has only happened once before in the history of this test!
To start with SM0KAK borrowed me a rig, a IC 290 with a transverter for 6m. After playing with it for some month and building antennas for 2m and 6m I decided to buy a new rig to myself!
The rig I chose to buy is an Icom IC-7100. It is basically a mobile rig but it is great to use as a basestation rig as well. So far I have mostly used it for FT8 on 17m / 15m / 6m / 2m. After using it for some time I a struck by how well the MMI of it is designed. So far I have never thought "Why isn't it functioning like this instead?"
My current antennas:
While investing in a new Amatuer rig I also shopped for an antenna measurement tool, namely a mini VNA Tiny. So far this little blue box has been of a great help.
In addition to the VNA I have also started to play around with a tinySA.
Instead of the supplied hand microphone HM-198 I have bought a desktop microphone SM-50 (Plus the adapter OPC-589). This is more convenient when the Icom IC-7100 is used as a stationary station.
- 5724 views