K0RQ

After having had my HF setup completely fail sometime in 2021, being swamped with work in 2022, and then moving in 2023, I’m happy to report in 2024 I’m finally back on the air at home!

Besides my then-neighborhood becoming sketchy and me outgrowing my 920sqft condo, one of the reasons for moving in 2023 was to finally have a backyard where I can string up some real antennas. My balcony mount hamstick setup, which served me very well for almost a decade, just wasn’t cutting the mustard anymore. I’m pleased to report after having been in the house almost a year now, my new station setup is complete.

When picking out new antennas for my house, I had to be careful. My new far-less-sketchy neighborhood does have covenants against antennas. However, they are quite vague. The neighborhood is also supposed to have an HOA, but the vast majority of homeowners in the neighborhood don’t want one. Thus, said covenants are not enforced. So the goal was to do what would work best for my needs, not break the bank, and have an element of disguise. My antennas didn’t need to be super stealthy, but they couldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. A tower with directional beam was straight out of the picture, but a wire antenna would work.

Attached to the back fascia of the house are two Comet GP3’s. The one on the left is for TV/FM receive, and is tied into the CATV wiring in my house. The other one is used for VHF/UHF base use. In this configuration, they are not super visible from the road. I had concerns about them being symmetrical, but for the most part they do blend in.

In between the two whips is a Ultimax 100 80m-6m EFHW 66′ antenna. I have it setup as an inverted V, with the transformer mounted to the left, being stretched on the side of the house and under the soffit, and then jumping off and running over to the side of the shed. It works stellar on 20m/40m. It’s a little noisy on 80m (as expected due to the proximity to the ground, it should really be higher), but should allow me to start checking into the regional 80m nets.

In the shack, not much has changed from a few years ago. Still rocking the IC-7300 with an LDG Autotuner. I did purchase a new desk when I moved, which I love, except I’ve discovered the operating position is a bit far from the computer for logging purposes. I will probably add a third monitor closer to the radio for that task

Overall, I’m very pleased with how everything has turned out, save for how long it took me to get this point. Looking forward to playing a lot of radio with this setup for many years to come.