There’s still a few milestones in ham radio that I haven’t gotten around to, that are on my bucket list. First and foremost is I really want an antenna tower with a beam antenna. All my antennas up to now have been omni-directional antennas. A beam antenna, which focuses all the radio waves in one direction, would allow me to contact parts of the world that have been so far unavailable with my current set up. Primarily Islands in the Pacific, as well as places like China, India, the Middle East and some parts of Africa. I am holding off on building a tower because Lee-Ann and I hope to move to Florida before the end of 2025, and maybe sooner. I want a tower that will be around 50 feet tall, perhaps a telecoping tower that can be raised and lowered to make working on the antennas easier and protect against damage in a storm. And it has to have the ability to use an antenna rotor, so I can remotely “aim” my beam antenna. Something like this would be amazing.
Another milestone will be to step up to an amplifier. Most ham radios deliver 100 watts by default, but with an amplifier, I could legally go to 1500 watts. BUT, it doesn’t make sense to get an amplifier until I have the best possible antenna situation, otherwise it is wasted power, and wasted money. I am hoping to get a solid state amplifier (as opposed to the more old fashioned tube based amplifiers), something like this Mercury Lux, which is based on a pair of LDMOS power transistors
There are a couple of other projects on my to-do list. One (which I have been avoiding) is to learn Morse code. There is a whole new class of operators that only use Morse to communicate, and I would love to be in that group some day. And finally I would love to find a way to install a 2 meter/70 centimeter radio in our Subaru Forester, that isn’t too obtrusive. Small cars like that don’t leave a lot of room for traditional radio installations. I am thinking about installing an Anytone AT-D578UV, with one of their blue tooth remote microphones. That way I can put the entire radio under a seat and only have the blue tooth microphone up front in the driver seat
