AmateurRadio.com

As 2023 is on the eve of ending it has been a great year of retirement I can't believe I am heading into year 5. I am so thankful that my wife and I have had great health during the year.  

 As for my goals for 2023, some moved forward and others did not even start. At the start of 2023, I wanted to look into vinyl albums, a turn table and spin some jazz music...well that never happened. Life just seemed to get in the way of that one. My aspirations of getting a firm hold on CW head copy did not advance as far along as I would like but I am moving forward. At least I am heading in the right direction. 

I am happy to say that my reading has picked up and I have devoted an hour a day which I have been very faithful to. I have been reading fiction, Amateur radio periodicals and technical articles. I also wanted to improve on my ability to handle a pileup during contesting and I have improved with that. I have been using N1MM+ and G4FON software as they both can simulate a CW pileup situation. Finally, my CW speed has improved along with my accuracy. So overall not a bad year regarding goals completed. 

There was a "whisper goal" ( a goal that a little voice whispers in my head) to finally run in the CWops mini tests I do each week. Well, that time was this past week, the mini-contests I choose to take part in are on Wednesdays each week at 1300 and 1900 UTC. The speeds in these mini-tests can get blurry at times. The ops are top level and to be honest, running in an hour contest such as this to me is intimidating, to say the least. During the morning contest, I ran for the last 15 minutes. For the afternoon mini-contest, I ran for just about the full hour. It was bumpy at times and my nerves got the best of me but I look forward in 2024 to make this a common theme in these contests. 

I have been active with CW contesting, contacting POTA and making it into some DXpeditions. Below is my CW count for the year and it's not all about the numbers it's about having fun and that I did! They are almost double from last year. I was reading KE9V blog (as I do each day) and he was saying in a recent post
 "Those who put 10k or more in the log annually aren’t “regular” hams and need a puppy or something to distract them from radio…"
Maybe in my next post of New Year's goals and dreams, a puppy may be in the picture.

 
Thanks to everyone who reads my posts and at times puts up with the dry spells in the posting.

2 Responses to “2023 in the rearview mirror”