💾 Archived View for r2aze.observer › archive › 2020-08-15-radio-day.gmi captured on 2022-04-28 at 17:39:31. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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You wouldn’t think this would be my first ever confirmed [QSO], but yet here it is.
I spent ten years as a category 4 amateur, never getting around to actually going through with the full license, so I _couldn’t_ have shortwave contacts. On VHF/UHF, confirmed contacts are an exception rather than the norm, you only bother to do that when you do something spectacular. Now that I got a full [CEPT]-compatible license, I can actually call beyond my own backyard.
With the quarantine, with my radio suffering from old age, and with not having a proper shortwave antenna, six months passed between me renewing the license and finally clocking in a contact.
But earlier this summer, I finally set up a permanent antenna. Which happens to be a piece of magnet wire selected for its stealth properties in dense urban jungle, rather than something actually _nice_, but you get what you can where you can.
WSPR shows remarkable results for what this “antenna” is.
[WSPR] is a digital protocol which is basically used to test propagation and whether your antenna works, and is generally not manned – it’s a network of automated receivers siphoning data about what they have heard off into the net. And even though robots seem to hear me just fine, it took a while before a human responded:
The first QSL card I got. Electronic, of course.
Might not be worth much for anyone else, but for me it’s a bit of a milestone.
➡️ Events: Good morning, Vietnam
▶️ 2020-08-29: Anytone AT-D878UV and Bluetooth
© 2001-2022 Eugene Medvedev. All rights reserved, not like that ever stopped anyone, or means anything when not backed up by a corporation.
