At the end of 2024, I obtained my foundation ham amateur radio licence. It’s been a great year. I have learned so much, discovered so many new things and have been amazed at what I can do with the convergence of computers and radio. I’ve also met some great people right around the world.
I was familiar with high frequency (HF) voice transmissions from my shortwave radio listening or DXing days in the 1980’s. What I didn’t know about was FT8 digital transmissions. This was a whole new world to me. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it (thank you, YouTube), and it’s where I have spent most of my time in the first year.
By the end of 2025, my Mac and Windows PCs have had well over 2,000 interactions or QSO’s with operators in 101 “countries”. I was excited to hit the ton and a few days before the end of the year with an FT8 QSO with a fellow ham in Guam. I put countries in inverted commas as in radio land, they’re actually “DXCC Zones”. For example, while Alaska is a state of the United States, it is two different “countries” or DXCC zones in radio land. But as of 31 December 2025, I have 101 whatevers logged. I am happy with that!
I have been using an Icom IC-7300, and an IC-7300Mk2 arrived just before Christmas. The apps used have been SDR Control for Icom (Mac), iDigi (Mac), WSJT-X and GridTracker (Windows and Mac).
Logbook
Map
9 January 2026
I got this image from Club Log. It has more precise details.
26 January 2025