From 2020 - 2022...pretty much the hardest portion of the pandemic; I served as president of OVH. I was both not-ready to run a club and surprised the membership entrusted me with the task. It worked out because not only did I have no clue what to do; having to go remote for everything meant no one else did. I managed to get the club in to remote meetings using a self-hosted video conferencing platform that was "easy to accidentally get in to" and keep things together; though the club members are about 75% responsible for making it work. They gladly followed what I felt should be done and supported me through all the bumps along the way. The club actually grew in membership during this time; so all and all it was a success. I didn't run for a third term as I wanted to cut anything holding me here as I really had planned on moving; and almost did in August of 2022. But all of that fell apart at the last minute.
+From 2020 - 2022...pretty much the hardest portion of the pandemic; I served as president of OVH. I was both not-ready to run a club and surprised the membership entrusted me with the task. It worked out because not only did I have no clue what to do; having to go remote for everything meant no one else did. I managed to get the club in to remote meetings using a self-hosted video conferencing platform that was "easy to accidentally get in to" and keep things together; though the club members are about 75% responsible for making it work. They gladly followed what I felt should be done and supported me through all the bumps along the way. The club actually grew in membership during this time; so all and all it was a success. I didn't run for a third term as I wanted to cut anything holding me here as I really had planned on moving; and almost did in August of 2022. But all of that fell apart at the last minute.
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I got my first HF rig just a few months after getting licensed and played around with various HF antennas. I was more interested in building things than buying them, so I played around with all manners of end-feds and OCFDs with some success. A year later I'd return to that same hamfest I got this IC-725 at and upgraded to Extra, as I quickly realized if I wanted all the fun 40m DX; I had to get get out of that tiny 25khz DX window. About a year after that, I managed to snag NQ4T through low competition. I upgraded the station to an IC-7300 in 2018, but had to sell the radio due to some circumstances 10 months later. I also had an IC-7100 for about 2 years...before I had to sell it (and pretty much my entire shack).
+I got my first HF rig just a few months after getting licensed and played around with various HF antennas. I was more interested in building things than buying them, so I played around with all manners of end-feds and OCFDs with some success. A year later I'd return to that same hamfest I got this IC-725 at and upgraded to Extra, as I quickly realized if I wanted all the fun 40m DX; I had to get get out of that tiny 25khz DX window. About a year after that, I managed to snag NQ4T through low competition. I upgraded the station to an IC-7300 in 2018, but had to sell the radio due to some circumstances 10 months later. I also had an IC-7100 for about 2 years...before I had to sell it (and pretty much my entire shack).
Now I have this:
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My main HF rig is a Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark-V with a MFJ-974HB Balanced Tuner. I built both a digital interface to the DVS-2 port as well as a TinyFSK keyer for FSK. It's on "extended loan" (I think it's a loan) from KG4NXT and N7QLK. I can see why people still use these things; for a couple generations old it's still a fine radio and some of the tweaking I can do to signals is just as good, if not more flexible, than I could get with even the 7300. (But I still miss that 7300.)
With the MKV I'm driving a 72' long doublet up at about 50', with balanced line all the way to the shack. I built the first doublet in 2015 after playing with end-fed wires and OCFDs; but the doublet blew both of them out of the water. I called CQ once on 30m JT65 (that's how long ago it was) and spent what must have been an hour or more getting working half of Europe. I've been part of the doublet club ever since. The current one broke just before Hamvention and stayed down until I got the Yaesu just after Christmas; other than that it's been up since 2018. I kept good notes of the failures/issues I had with the first one and fixed them with the second one; it's paid off.
