The Decline and Rebirth of [my] Amateur Radio
I’ve lived here at Roy Creek Ranch for 22 years, with varying interest in Amateur Radio. Career was a big part of that, with little spare time each weekend before work each Monday morning. Add a 2-3 hour daily commute and ham radio just didn’t fit in. That’s not to say I didn’t do any hamming though. The hill country is perfect for radio with acres for big wire antennas and virtually no noise. A ham’s dream QTH.
Building the Dream House and Ham Shack
I had big plans. As we built our house, I added a dedicated shack and power, and buried cable entrances for coax and other wires needed for the antenna farm. Special coax was installed for a 2-meter antenna to be placed on the roof. Network wire and 75-ohm coax went to locations in every room of the house. I anticipated technologies to future-proof the 1996 construction process. The 2-meter antenna was vital since the rural telephone company couldn’t provide service for several months. Autopatch repeaters were our telephone when no cell service existed.
More antennas went up right away. A Butternut HF6V multiband vertical for HF. Two 36-foot wooden tilt-over towers using 20-foot 2-by-4 lumber salvaged from pouring the concrete slab. Located about 150 feet apart, they supported a multiband Zepp antenna fed with open-wire line. These antennas provided superb HF communications for several years until the untreated wooden towers collapsed due to weather damage and nesting woodpeckers. By then, the vertical was also showing its age and other projects took precedence.
Other antennas were built in fits and starts. A dual-band dipole for 30 and 40-meters worked well, and a 10-meter dipole was strung in the trees for a converted CB-radio in the shop. A Discone antenna provided signals to the scanner in the shop. Finally, I decided to try a full-wave 80-meter loop. Mounted horizontally about 14 feet above the ground, it was a marginal performer for 80, but pretty good as a receive antenna. With this cast of characters in place, I settled into my comme ci comme ça amateur radio existence.
Amateur Radio in Decline
My growing indifference to amateur radio reflected the common notion of the early aughts that ham radio was declining and perhaps irrelevant. Why go to the trouble of getting a license, buying a radio, erecting antennas when you could text nearly anyone on the planet? I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, but it was certainly less alluring when distracted by the wonders of the Internet Age. There were so many new and wondrous toys to explore!
Podcasting to the Rescue?
It changed for me in 2011. I had been listening to podcasts on my long commutes like This Week in Tech and MacBreak Weekly — all part of the “TWIT” network — when they announced a new podcast: Ham Nation, hosted by Bob Heil of Heil Sound fame. I knew of Bob from my work in the recording industry and was intrigued. If Leo Laporte (TWIT’s founder) and Bob Heil were launching a new ham radio podcast, there must be some life in the old hobby yet. I started listening to Ham Nation and was hooked. Although aimed at “ham curious” or beginning hams, it was entertaining and reminded me of my early fascination with the hobby. As I listened, I started thinking about once-loved but now neglected gear and thought about making some upgrades.
A New Radio
I had a good radio, but it was over 30 years old and had developed the characteristic band switch problem that all IC-720A’s seem to have. I had always been intrigued by Elecraft products and initially thought about getting a KX-3. Small, portable and very capable, it was the perfect radio for travel. Of course it was in short supply — I wouldn’t be able to get one for months. Although similar, the bigger brother K3 seemed too extravagant by comparison, but the more I thought about it, I realized it would suit my needs much better. The small added cost would lead to a more flexible station. I ordered one with many of the bells and whistles. I’ve since wondered if anyone noticed a bump in amateur radio sales after the first episodes of Ham Nation?
and New Antennas
Antenna upgrades were next. For the first time, I had a radio with 6-meter capability. On top of that, the solar maximum was coming in the summer of 2013 with the promise of exceptional propagation on 10 and 6-meters. It was time to get cracking since these solar maximums occur on 11-year cycles. There wouldn’t be another until 2024!
A few years earlier, an ham buddy of mine had moved away leaving his old 25-foot tower and dual-band (6 and 10-meter) beam behind. They had been lying on the ground at the ranch for several years, and I decided to install them on the north gable end of my house. That way, the tower would mount on the porch roof, and pivot at the base allowing ground-based service.
My friend Jason of Vintage Auto fabricated the pivot mount and support bracket, and with the addition of a boat winch, I had the tilt-over tower mounted in no time. A TV antenna rotor was sufficient to rotate the small beam, and two relatively short runs of RG-8 coax were sufficient to reach the shack — located just below the tower. It took a couple of weekends, but it wasn’t too hard.
I was immediately rewarded with the sweet sounds of Q5 signals on 6 and 10 meters. Having experienced the memorable solar maximum of 1980 some 33 years before, I was reminded of the thrill of world-wide DX. I had never worked 6-meters before, sometimes known as the “magic band.” Magic indeed! Telephone-quality communications with as little as a few watts of power! I forgot to mention that I didn’t buy the 100-watt amplifier for the K3 — I was making all these contacts with 12 watts or less!
More Vital than Ever
The Internet, contrary to popular belief, did not kill Amateur Radio. Instead, the Internet propelled ham radio into a kind of renaissance over the last decade with each multiplying the effect of the other. The number of US amateurs has risen steadily to 750,164 in April of 2018 after declining to a low of 655,842 licensed amateurs in 2007. A 14% gain in the last 11 years. For me, the rise of the Internet led to rediscovering my love of ham radio and, without intending to, building the dream station of my youth. I can’t wait for the next solar maximum in 2024!
Interesting! A question came up as I was reading… “ham”radio. What does ham stand for? An abbreviation? Meaning? Difference in hamradio comparet to QX?
One opinion holds that it originated as a pejorative term for early amateur radio operators. At the turn of the 20th century, commercial telegraphers applied the term because they felt that amateur code skills were poor or “ham-fisted”. There are other versions of the story, and I don’t think anyone really knows for sure. For example, some believe it is an acronym formed using the first initials of Hertz, Armstrong, and Marconi — three of the early experimenters that advanced the radio art. The problem with this is that Armstrong had not made his contributions when the term first appeared. What do you mean by QX?