= 2026-05-26 Tuesday = Some thoughts about my return to amateur radio... ================================================= Equipment --------- A few weeks ago I set up some gear on the desk in my little "office/den/shack" to get back into ham radio after a break of a year or so. There's not much room on the desk, and impossible to re-create the setup I had in my outside shed/shack. I have to decide what I want to get out of this period of radio activity... What are my interests in radio? What do I want to do "on the air"? I'm not going to set up a full blown geeky workshop-shack combination, with test gear and tools and space to build and test and repair stuff. All I'm going to do is set up "enough" gear to have some fun having contacts on the HF bands. What's "enough" gear? Initially I set up my fairly new FT891 and my 2nd hand IC7200. With only one HF antenna I put in a coax switch to be able to switch the antenna between the two radios. But what do I use each radio for? Is it even necessary to have 2 radios in this little shack? I thought at first I'd use the little FT891 for CW and the IC7200 for digimodes (Olivia, PSK31, Hellschreiber etc). The IC7200 is great for this purpose, with it's internal USB soundcard and USB serial control, it makes a great "HF Modem" But I found switching between the 2 radios to be pointless - the IC7200 is also a good CW radio, with its DSP IF filter and much easier band switching. And I drifted to using the IC7200 for CW too... making the FT891 redundant. So last night I had a changearound. The FT891 was removed. The antenna switching arrangement was removed. The Bugs and Straight keys were connected to the IC7200. The Bencher paddles were removed, no more iambic paddles/electronic keying. My first love is still manual telegraphy with straight keys and bugs. I even removed the USB cable and dropped the idea of using digimodes. This is a period of introspection.... What do I REALLY enjoy? What kind of radio operator am I? Looking back in my logbook, and through my memory, I think I must be honest and say that it is CW first and foremost. I had a "fling" for a few years with digital modes on the 60m band. But those days are gone. The little crowd of likeminded souls have moved on to other things. It's no longer possible to reliably find a QSO on 60m digimodes nowadays. I spent a few weeks trying. Calling CQ. Monitoring the channel (5366.5kHz). I saw one or two stations. But none responded to my replies. And my CQ calls went unanswered. On the main HF bands it's also getting harder to find any digimode activity that isn't a "JT" mode. Finding the more unsual digimodes seems more trouble than it's worth. Back to CW... ------------- There's ALWAYS some CW on the bands. Fast electronic keyer rubber stamp stuff, medium speed chats, slow and shaky beginners. Something for everyone. And I love the idea that CW is still around. That it's a curious blend of scientific/technical and a mish-mash of personal individual skills. You can practice and improve both your receiving AND your sending quite separately from the technical improvements you can make in the equipment (with better filtering, better keys, bugs, etc). There's a feeling of accomplishment after EVERY CW QSO that I don't get after a digimode QSO. And I don't really operate phone modes, but when I do I usually come away feeling tired and "icky". CW gives me a feeling of happiness. Some QSOs are difficult - some people you discover have very poor sending skills - I try not to judge, there's no knowing what the other person is dealing with, physical limitations etc. - and you can come away feeling exhausted. But always knowing that it's been an experience, using your own skills and pushing yourself on. I can occasionally have a long rag-chew at ~20wpm and find it's lasted over an hour. Eventually your brain settles down and you get into a comfort zone... these QSOs are magic. And the magic is that you've just spent an hour chatting about stuff to someone without speaking. Just your fingers and your ears. It's something to get better at, day by day, year by year. Your success at QSOs is directly affected by the work you've put in, by the skills you've developed. Digimodes are great technical communications modes, and you can have great conversations - but there's little skill involved. CW has the unique blend of technical and emotional that gives enjoyment on many levels. Callsign -------- I was given the callsign "G4SLV" in 1983 when I got my amateur licence. I had just turned 17 years old. I used it on the air for the next 12 years, in all sorts modes - CW, SSB, FM, Packet Radio, Amateur Television. I moved to Scotland in 1995, but wasn't very active in radio at that time - but I still became "GM4SLV". I moved to Shetland in 1999 and shortly afterwards I got back into the hobby. I came back on HF CW, with an Elecraft K1. I was now firmly "GM4SLV" Since then, over the last 27 years, I've done CW, Digimodes, a small amount of SSB, APRS, DMR and Echolink and Allstar. I was one of the first with experimental access to "500kHz" and used CW on that band - of course! All this as GM4SLV I've done much more on air activity with "GM4SLV" than I ever did with "G4SLV", but when the UK licence rules changed last year I had a thought that I could now return to my "native" callsign. So I gave it a try, for the last few weeks. At first it felt alien sending G4SLV in CW.... but also nostalgic... But after a few QSOs it now feels "wrong". I've had a lot of QSOs over the years as "GM4SLV" and despite my initial nostalgic longing to use my "original" callsign, I think too much of my radio identity is tied up with being "GM4SLV". And the wider world still hasn't caught on to the idea that in the UK we no longer need to indicate which "national region" we're in. I've yet to come across someone else on the air that's dropped the "M" from their "Scottish" callsign. So why confuse people unduly? So, from today I've reverted to the callsign I've acually used fairly consistently since around 1999. I've been a "GM" for much longer than I was a "G"... The next stage -------------- I'm planning on getting my CW skills back to where they were last time I was reasonably active on HF. I'm planning to have QSOs, to meet new people and bump into people I've worked before and catch up. And I'm going to watch my copy of the "QRT500" video and delve again in to the world of wireless telegraphy.