What use is an F-call?

When I passed my Foundation License test I spent some months researching what equipment to buy, where to buy it from and how to configure it after I bought it. In case you're wondering, I ended up with a Yaesu 857D with a Diamond SG-7200 dual band antenna and an SGC SG-237 antenna tuner for HF. I'm not mentioning those things as a recommendation, nor am I telling you about them because I think that's the best solution. I'm telling you about them to indicate that I purchased all my gear, straight from retailers, and now use the resulting kit as my station.

Last week I was at a club meeting where an Amateur of many, many years experience was holding a talk about VHF and UHF antennas that you can build in your kitchen with parts from your local hardware store. The excitement that this amateur had for making all manner of antennas was clearly evident and I came to realise that my path of buying all my gear, while successful in terms of making it on-air also left something behind, experimentation.

For months I've experimented with cables, connectors, batteries and locations. At a certain level I was "experimenting", making audio interfaces, battery leads, RF cables, etc. but this talk highlighted something for me personally that showed that until now I've not scratched the surface of experimentation.

My foundation license allows me to only use commercially produced transceivers, but it says nothing about anything connected to it. The talk showed that there is an infinite variety of antenna technology available and being produced and invented new each day. Some amateurs talk about a shed full of failed attempts and a little corner with some successes.

After being introduced to the beginnings of making my own antenna, I'm hooked. I'm sure I'll be spending at least some of my Amateur Radio time building antennas and learning from the experience. Perhaps one day I'll inspire the next person to build their own antenna too. In the mean time I'm looking forward to learning from the Amateurs that went before me.

I'm Onno - VK6FLAB