I am digital!

Showing WSJT-X, Log4OM, jTAlert, and GridTracker.

My move into digital ham radio has been slow and progressive. Since obtaining my General license in April 2021, I directed my attentions to Parks On The Air (POTA) via phone. I knew others were doing "digital," but somehow that just didn't sound appealing to me. I wanted to talk to people in other parts of the country, perhaps the world. That seemed to me to be what ham radio was all about. And, I did have some really exciting times out in my local Minnesota state parks doing POTA. I got long distance calls from places like California, Alaska, Mexico, and even from Spain once or twice.

Then, when I got back to my suburban town-home and tried to get phone contacts, it was a real struggle. I was using the same antenna I got great results with out in the state parks - a Wolf River "Silver Bullet" vertical with a 213 inch whip. I clearly had a higher noise floor at home, and it was more difficult to pull in distant stations (I'm talking just US stations!). 

Over time I began to consider whether weak signal digital might be a good alternative to my limited send/receive options at home. Toward the end of 2021 I began to wade into the exciting waters of contesting. But, I had that propagation problem at my home shack! My temporary solution was to setup a weekend End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) on my small lot, extending some 20 feet of it vertical on a Spiderbeam pole, and sloping the rest of it down and out to the yard. I got pretty good results with that, and it remains my contesting setup, though only something I can get away with for a short time. And, I am not the least bit interested in trying to set it up during a Minnesota winter!

That relegates me to my next best option, which is my "gutter antenna." Some time ago I screwed a wire into my gutter downspout, and ran it to a 9:1 Unun and an MFJ choke. That gets me pretty reliable results from 10 to 80 meters. My Wolf River vertical antenna requires manual tuning via the coil on one band at a time. Whereas, with the gutter antenna I can switch bands at will, and with the aid of my MFJ external tuner, I am able to get pretty reliable and acceptable results (at least as good as the WR, and with less hassle). 

Finally, after I had a couple of contests under my belt, I decided to try WSJT-X and digital. In part, because it provided more contesting venues, and also it had the potential to let me capture more QSO's from my home station. I installed WSJT-X and began another learning curve on a brand new (to me) venue for ham radio. The first integration was between N1MM logger and WSJT-X. After viewing several YouTube videos on setup I was good to go. But it does seem that N1MM is setup more for contesting, so I decided to try Log4OM for my personal digital activities. It wasn't long before I included GridTracker. And, now I have also incorporated jTAlert. The digital home shack is complete (for now, what ham doesn't try new things?!).