Thoughts From a Returning Ham

I’m really getting a lot of enjoyment out of ham radio this time around.  I was inactive for about 15 years and got fired up again about 6 months ago. I promptly went out and bought a Kenwood TS-590s and put up an Alpa Delta DX-EE in the attic. Recently I added a Heil ProSet Elite headset.

Before the break my rig was a used Heathkit HW-100 that was old and tired when I bought it. Antennas were a mixture of dipoles, inverted Vs, and a beam up at about 25 feet. Each contact was a struggle.  Even minor pileups were impenetrable.

Things are different today. I certainly cannot compete with big guns but I’ve had no problems in minor pileups. I can make contacts with ease and have no trouble being understood. And that’s with 100 watts and a dipole in the attic.

A lot of it is the radio (I call the TS-590 a ‘Miracle Radio’). The speech processor adds punch to my signal on transmit and the DSP allows me to pull the signals out of the noise.  I have noticed a definite improvement since I added the Heil headset too.