= 2026-04-22, Wednesday =

=== To return to Amateur Radio? ===

I've been involved in Amateur Radio since I was a teenager. That's
45 or more years ago. I got my Full licence in 1983, while I was
still at school.

In the last few years, whenever I've had the itch to get back into
radio I've come away dispirited, and bored by it.

The technical side is always interesting and absorbing. It's just
when I get "on the air" I find it's not as absorbing and engaging
as it once was. Finding likeminded people to talk to. On HF I find
it very difficult now that 99% of the world is drowning in high RF
noise levels. I'm okay - out here in the sticks - but most urban
environments seem to be impossible for doing simple HF Ham Radio.

My thing is CW. Morse code. At least it still seems possible to
have contacts using this mode. And a few data modes are also
capable of cutting through the noise. But still...

Last year I had a re-awakening that lasted a few months. Then I
crashed out it. I put all my gear away in the shed (my old shack,
now cold and unheated and un-inhabitable) while I decided what I
wanted out of a hobby. Any hobby.

Well, in recent weeks I've been feeling as though I should dig out
the gear, save it from a slow death in a cold shed. 

Get back on the air. 

Or at least, get back into finding technical avenues to explore.

Last night I tried to make a tentative start. 

I found my Kenwood handheld radio and its charger. 
I found a "ShariPi" Allstar hotspot module and a Raspberry Pi4 
and was going to resurrect my Allstarlink hotspot. 

At least get that bit of Ham Radio going. 

But the radio's battery was dead. 

The charger had been attacked by the damp of its incarceration 
in the shed. When I plugged the charger in nothing
much happened... 

then BANG!!!.... 

and the RCD for the ringmain tripped. 

Bye Bye charger. Hopefully the radio still works once I find 
something else to charge its battery.

I'm thinking I need to retrieve the good gear - my HF transceivers,
power supplies etc - and get them in the warm and dry. Leave them
to acclimatize before powering them up again.

I have a Xeigu G90 in a "peli-case" that I can take out with me in
my van when I'm working. I'll put it in the back of the van, with 
a telescopic fishing pole and some wire, and try some portable 
operation once Spring arrives.

Watch this space.

73

John
G4SLV (GM4SLV)