I disappeared for about, what 11 years, and just looking at this, I was able to log in with my Google Account. So hmm.. Maybe I will bring it back.
My free time for ham radio, which was never a lot really slowed down around ten years ago. My now adult kids became most of my life around then, work got worse, and what little I did post ended up on Facebook groups.
Like many people, I started to get shadow banned and get periodic 24 hour bans for saying stuff that wasn't bad about a year ago. My political views by any norms are mostly harmless but still I started to get in trouble there. The final straw for me was saying "If I told you I would have to kill you" to a comment, totally in a positive context too... In my line of work that's something you jokingly hear at least once a week. It got me the last 24 hour ban that Facebook will ever give me.
They then a couple of weeks later tried to recruit me via LinkedIn. It's the only time in my life I explained why it was a big no.
I did try to get back on as a regular at AmateurRadio.com but despite Matt the editor saying he'd restore a login for me, it never happened. Just as well, even that was about a year ago and right after that I had a year of major disasters. You probably had a bad 2021, but I assure you that I had it worse.
About 5 years ago I moved to Southern Arizona for a new job, and have more or less been in HOA hell. I mitigated it somewhat by becoming the HOA secretary and luckily we are in a subdivision that's not militant about it.
I also just bought what is a weekend place that hopefully I will retire to eventually about 45 miles SSE as the crow flies from my house in Corona de Tucson. 12 AC, enough for a 550' Beverage again if I desire. I had enough Aluminum tubing to start on a 43' vertical. I actually have 71 radials down this time for the first time. Various lengths. Only 16.5' up because it's been windy every weekend for like the last 8, and I don't have rope guy points in yet.
Brought my Xiegu G90 there and finally hooked it up two weekends ago. First qso on that rig and antenna (and it's not even done) was to R5AJ in Moscow. On a Chinese rig..10w pep SSB is what I set it to for "official QRP". I do stuff like that because I have a dark sense of humor. The bands are coming back. I think cycle 25 is going to be at least 23 intensity, the current predictions are wrong... Too low..
I will detail that and some other stuff I am working on in the next several weeks.
Why is a 43' vertical 43 feet? It's 5/8 wave on 20m, and long enough for 30m and 40m. Without top loading of some sort its dicey on 80m. But you get some additional low angle gain on 20m and the pattern is quarter wave ish on 60m (it is almost a quarter wave there), 40m, and 30m.
With that antenna being so hyped its sometimes hard to get that basic information. It's non resonant everywhere except for 60m where it's "almost" resonant.
Where my build is different is that I am trying to mark the quarter wave points so with my tilt over base I built I can easily change it to a, quarter wave from 40 to 15m or so. Anything higher than that a dipole on a stick would be better.
I am not going to do a tower again. And the scrub in the high desert is velvet mesquites. They don't get very tall. So for below 20m it's gonna be verticals this time for sure.
I have less land at the new place than I did in Iowa but I don't have to lease any of it out for farming which put a bigger cramp into the ham radio antenna field than I ever imagined. It's why I had aluminum tubing in a bag and never up.
Ciao for now.
Fred W0FMS/7
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