Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year to one and all.

Goals for this year: To spend more time on the radio, balancing family time. To get more active with the club, and its activities as my work schedule allows. To get over my mike fright, making many more contacts. Think that’s enough.

What are your goals?

Christmas was good. On the ham front got a mini manual for the IC-718. Makes looking up basic commands really easy. I also got a dual monitor stand Here is why that’s important.

Windows 10 is finally reaching End of Life (eol). My current desk machine is a developers model, Dell Precision T5500, while it has excellent specs, great ram, and monster processors, it is not supported by Windows 11. It will enjoy a second life as a LINUX server so don’t shed any tears. I have a spare laptop that will run Windows 11. Trouble is it only has 8 GB ram. Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) May be too much of a pig to run on it.

HRD may be too complicated to run my radio. The reason is the things it supports I have no need of. These include: Rotator – I don’t have a tower, LOGBOOK – This is what happens when you try to be all things to all people. Rig Control – I understand the need for some of the complicated machines out there, but I have an IC-718 why complicate it? Two things I am waiting for; 1 – version 7 I hope it is modular so I can choose my poison. 2 – a system that does not require 3 monitors to work well. I am actively looking for alternatives.

The front runners to replace it are:

Amateur Contact Log by N3FJP. I’ve been using it head to head with HRD. The simplicity of the interface is the leading factor. Enter your information, hit submit, and we are done. Man if everything was this easy, I’d have more radios and antennas…. Not sure how well it will work for portable use.

HAMRS – Think this or a more updated version when the database gets changed, for portable use. It runs on almost every portable device and operating system except chrome. Think about that a second. iPad, iPhone, Android phone and tablet, and last I heard Linux and its subs. Lightens the load for SOTA, POTA, and the other OTA’s, for those of us who don’t converse legibly.

I will always use QRZ and LOtW to post my logs. They seem to be the most used, and for the volunteer contest this year, LOtW will be the only way to get points.

Well this was a long post. I hope you enjoy it.

The opinions expressed are my own.

73 KF7SFU