One of Australia, indeed the world’s best amateur radio enthusiasts and communicators, is Hayden Honeywood (@VK7HH). Very simply, he does interesting stuff in plain English, well presented. He’s putting together a course for people interested in Amateur Radio, and he sought feedback from his Patreon subscribers. Here’s what I sent him.
Hi Hayden, well done on everything you are doing. It is awesome. I got my foundation licence a year ago (November 2024) and am loving it. My biggest issues have been logging (as in which software and or services) and where to get help. I wrote up my first 12 months’ experience on my blog. In the holy wars, I am an Apple and Icom shack.
For logging, I ended up using QRZ, LOTW, and eQSL via the logging app in SDR Control for Icom. For POTA, I use Ham 2k Polo. It all works well. I tried MacLogger, but it was a bit old school and non-Mac for me.
For help, I mainly use Facebook Groups and Reddit to ask questions and YouTube to learn. I did engage with my local radio club for a while, but that wasn’t a great experience. It was as you described in one of your videos, and I didn’t find some of the members welcoming and engaging. Indeed, some were quite hostile. So, I leave them to themselves.
I also love my AR news (and not punditry) podcasts:
- WIA
- ARRL
- RSGB
- Amateur Radio Newsline
ARRL also have a good beginner’s podcast guide called “Over the Air”.
I don’t listen to punditry. For me, it’s mostly just mindless waffle.
The YouTubers I follow are:
- You, Ham Radio DX
- Tech Minds
- Ham Radio Tube (Apple afficionado)
- M0FXB
- M0JSX
- KM6LYW
The biggest thing missing for me is a really good Australian Amateur Radio Discord Channel. I joined Toads as a part of my membership with you, but it’s slow, and there’s not much local content. I would love to see a lot of the Australian Facebook groups roll into Discord. It would be so much better.
That’s it, keep up the great work.
Andrew, VK2AWN
25 November 2025