Well, as it stands now, we will be making the move to the North Carolina mountains on Saturday 9/24. As I write this that is two weeks from tomorrow. The date may change some as it is dependent on us getting the XYL’s dialysis moved to the Hendersonville NC area.

The shack picture is a little clearer now, I simply don’t have one as everything is packed away for the move. I was hoping to wait until a few days before the move to do this but I had to vacate two rooms of the house so they can put down new carpet. So, my “shack’ doesn’t exist anymore. But I do have options…

Hello new radio, good-bye old radios

I will write about this in more detail later but I have a new Icom IC-705. It will be my POTA/SOTA radio after we make the move and it will serve double duty in the new shack setup. The IC-7300 has a new hard case so I will be able to carry it to the field also though I’m still not sold on that idea yet.

Gone are the Xiegu X6100, the G90 and even my Yaesu FT-891 is gone. All went to the same ham and were traded/sold for an antenna analyzer and a Buddistick Pro Deluxe. Mark really was a joy to deal with as we worked out the different deals. I heard he just fell in love with the G90 and rightly so; it’s a fun radio to use.

The 705 is in a new POTA backpack that is reserved strictly for the 705 and the batteries, coax and antennas that I need tor a POTA activation. The plan is to use the Buddistick with the 705 but I also have an EFRW as well as a 40m – 10m EFHW for field use. I also have a new MAT-705 Plus auto tuner so that I can use the nonresonant wire antennas. The whole setup can also be easily setup in my yard for hunting POTA which is what I will do over the next two weeks if I can work around the thunderstorms.

If I do hunt from my yard over the next two weeks, I will post about it along with pictures of my setup. But regular posting won’t begin again until after the move.

Update to my update (about 5 minutes later)

I did hunt from the shack one night last week using the 705 and 10 watts (on external battery). I hunted 3 parks in under 5 minutes and even broke a couple of pileups with good reports. The IC=705 is an awesome little radio that just works magic.

Thanks for sticking with me and as always your comments and suggestions are welcome.