Today I want to cover my Ham Radio plans for this year. When I worked for a living, I often reflected on the saying: If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. This saying has given me pause to reflect on things I would like to do with the ham radio hobby in 2026. For certain, the building of another SSB radio is off the table. However, one thing for certain is to work on antennas. My Mosley Tri-Band beam has proven to be a piece of crap, and I heartily recommend never buy a Mosely Antenna! It worked for one year and died. I put no more than 600 watts into the beam, and yet it is rated for legal limit. I suspect trap failure, and a new set of traps is >$300. Buying a new set of traps would not insure a working antenna. Even when it worked it was marginal at best. For about $800 I could install a multiband Hex Beam, but I would have to get a lot of help to do that as I don't climb ladders anymore. Another goal is to continue the purge of commercial ham gear. The lo...
In the early days of our hobby some form of comparative signal reporting evolved. In those days signal reports were at the top of the list. Consider that the rigs were homebrewed often running 20 watts or less and literally all stations were using wire antennas and no beams. The RST system became the standard with R being readability and S being signal strength and T for tone. I am not sure how the exact factors were derived but 599 was the best signal you could have. Mind you the Mode was CW for a period of time until phone was invented and then the T was dropped. The T component was there because many stations were using marginal power supplies and the Tone sounded like a Buzz saw. With phone operation, the RS was modified so that a 5X9 was not the ne plus ultra and a certain signal level (S9) was accurately given a value, and soon very strong signals could be 5X9 + 20 for 20dB over S9, where S9 was a calculated numeric value. I marvel how in contests where a hardly heard ...