== 2026-04-26, Saturday ==

=== Weeknote #1 ===

These "weeknote" entries are going to be a semi-regular series of
short diary-like format capturing the things I've done, watched,
read, listened to and thought about during the week.

Here goes No. 1

== Media ==

= TV = 

I've watched some Snooker this week - the World Championship began
on Saturday and I've dipped in and out of various matches over the
week. It's early days in the competition, and I'm not fully
entangled in it yet.

= Streaming =

I finished my marathon watching of the complete 12 seasons of "Big
Bang Theory" last week, on HBOMax. When I finished I had a strange
sense of loss and sadness that it's all over. So this week I've
started again, at the beginning. I don't watch much TV, and I'd
missed BBT when it was being shown originally (don't even know
where or how I'd have watched it) but watching it now I really
enjoyed it, so I'm going to stay immersed in the small world of the
rather grotesque characters.

= Comics = 

A few weeks ago I started buying 2000AD again. I first read this
sci-fi comic when "2000 AD" was still a long way off in the future.
Looking at the Wikipedia page for 2000AD I see mention of a
storyline "Comic Rock" which introduced the characters of Nemesis
the Warlock and Torquemada, in Prog 167, July 1980.
I remember this story first starting, and I'd been reading 2000AD 
for a while already at that point. A small group of friends, 3 or 4
of us, read 2000AD each week, and had reserved copies at a local
newsagent (in the local bus station). We made a pilgrimage each
Saturday morning to collect our copies.

I was 14 years old in 1980.

I'm 60 years old now. 

I'm amazed 2000AD is still going 46 years later! 

(I'm amazed /I'm/ still going 46 years later too!) 

Jumping in cold, mid storyline is a little tricky, catching up with
what's happening, but I'll stick with it until I understand what's
happening, or new storylines begin, and I can get in at the start.

Reading it now, in 2026, I see a little more political allegory.
There's a Judge Dredd storyine that seems to draw on the Epstein
saga. 

== Hobbies ==

I've been wrestling with whether to take up my old amateur radio
hobby again. 

Last year I decided I'd had enough of it. 

After 40 years I wasn't really finding anything to give me any fun. 

I just found most of what I heard on the air to be depressing. 
Amateur Radio is now just another consumer-media-electronics-gadget 
hobby.

But... I miss being able to idle tune across the HF radio spectrum
finding things to listen to that aren't available to "normal"
people. 

Morse Code, being able to speak to someone in another country
without talking. Using your fingers and your ears.

I'm also interested in non-ham radio use of the HF sectrum,
although that too seems to be in a depressing state now. 
The glory days of ship-shore has gone, the hugely varied world 
of Broadcast Short Wave stations are a shadow of their former 
selves.

But there /is/ still stuff to listen to.

I miss trying to catch the "Marine Historical Radio Society" weekly
operation from San Franscisco on a Saturday night (UK time).
Fragments of morse code traffic to the handful of vessels (mostly
museum ships) still equipped and capable of using morse code.

There are other things I miss.

And having my radios set up and working gives me a place I can lose
myself in for a few hours. 

Something purely for me. 

Away from work and homelife and chores and commitments.  

So I've got back into it. 

I started small - I found a few handheld radios and set up an
Allstar hotspot. I'd built a "shari-pi3" node last year so that was
easy to get going once I found it in the shed.

Yesterday I got my HF gear out of storage (in a damp unheated shed)
and back on the desk. I put up an antenna. I connected up 2 HF
transceivers. I can tune the shortwave bands. I can talk to people
if I choose to. I hooked up a morse key (a Bencher BY-1 paddle) to
the Yaesu FT-891. I'll sort out digital modes soon, using a
Raspberry Pi-4 and "flgigi".

But I have a rudimentary shack again. Simple, minimalist. But
working.

Let's see what the summer brings.

I have decided to take advantage of the recent change in UK Amateur
Radio rules, and revert to my original callsign "G4SLV". 

Since moving to Scotland in 1995, and Shetland in 1999, I've had to
use "GM4SLV". The new rules have made the "regional identifier"
optional. I no longer /need/ to be a "GM". I can go back to the
callsign I was first allocated back in 1983. I was still at school.
It was a big thing. I miss using it. 

ALthough it's been ingrained over the last 27 years to be "GM4SLV"
- and my morse-code muscle memory seems to find it natural - I want
to go back to the old days. Having taken a break of 12 months or so
has allowed me to see this new start as the opportunity to roll
back the years.

Look for G4SLV on the HF bands - in CW or digimodes. 

Drop me an email at w2w@murena.io if you fancy a sked.  

== John G4SLV