The Gun Counter

Nicely done, Soup!

And even more fun.

I picked up a cheap laptop.

It seems to run WSJT-X and fldigi through the IC-7100's sound card, though I'll have to work with it more before I know how to send out good signals with it.

I mainly want to use the digital modes for ensuring my signal can get out, then switching to voice (and eventually CW and RTTY) for making human contact.

I also do my first club activity this weekend as well. We're helping local Scouts on the annual Lincoln Trail Hike from New Salem to Springfield. One of our old hands should have his mobile HF station running.

Well, technically CW and RTTY are digital modes

If all you are interested in is checking propagation from your location check out WSPR and JS8Call.

https://www.wsprnet.org/drupal/

http://js8call.com/

In addition to it's "heart beat" mode to check propagation, you can also have keyboard to keyboard conversations

The PSK Reporter website will also show if your digital signal is being heard and where: https://pskreporter.info/

If you decide to get into FT-8 or FT-4 with the WSJT-X software, look into the GridTracker program it will display your signal reports from PSK Reporter as well as showing where other stations are active. https://gridtracker.org/
Full disclosure, I'm on the Test Team for GridTracker.

Finally got FT8 and WSPR running. My farthest QSO on FT8 so far has been Romania on 20m. PSKReporter also showed that my signal has been heard as far south as Paraguay.

Now that I know I'm getting out on my rig, I hope I can start making more SSB contacts.

Cool! What kind of signal reports have you been getting?

Usually running around -25 to -11dB. And that's even running 100 watts.

Not bad. About par on what I get with my Sloper. I usually run about 50 watts on the sloper and 75 on the Hexbeam. And a completed QSO at a -24dB counts just as much as any other. And don't forget that you signal report is as much dependent on what antenna the other guy is running as yours.

When I started to get +10dB and over reports is when I knew my Hexbeam was a good investment. Wish I had room for one that covered 30-80M.

The highest I've ever received was from a station in Greenland: +32dB on the Hexbeam, 17M 75W. I have to assume there was some sort of weird Arctic propagation going on. (Guys I used to work with that did comms supporting Arctic operations described operating conditions up there as "sporty").

Just received my 5 Band Worked All States award from the ARRL. 80,40,20,15 and 10 Meters. All the submitted contacts were digital, FT8.

And yesterday I received an e-mail with an award certificate from the Radio Amateurs of Canada for their Canada Winter Contest last December. I took First Place for the US 8 Call area, Single Op Single Band 20M.

Did that one on SSB with my trusty old Kenwood TS-820s while the 706 was in the shop and I had not ordered the 7300 yet.