Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech
I must have misunderstood your question... It appears that you have answered it better yourself. If you haven't been able to DX for 12 years, because of your living situation, it appears that it would indeed be very unlikely that you would hear DX stations. Perhaps I am confused?
jr
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No, you're not confused -- in fact, that was exactly what I was trying to say, that I can no longer use outdoor antennas for amateur radio and therefore can no longer DX the AM broadcast band, or any other band, as I used to at my previous residence. I miss it, but unfortunately, since I was more or less forced to move from the other house due to circumstances far beyond my control (another OT long story), that's the way it's been the last 12 years -- the closest thing I have to amateur radio HF operation anymore is Echolink, a voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) amateur radio linking system developed by a New England amateur 25 years or so ago.
That system is better than nothing, but I still miss my old RF-based ham radio station I had for seventeen years. The only RF-based ham operations open to me anymore from my apartment are FM on 2 meters (I am a member of the local radio club and use their repeater regularly). This repeater is not available, however, on the Echolink system I mentioned; if it were, my problems would be solved, but since the club's membership voted down linking the repeater to the system, I am out of luck as far as that is concerned. The repeater is also having problems receiving signals, probably due to antenna damage from recent violent storms in my area.
I have, however, been able to get to the repeater by moving my 2-meter equipment and antenna (indoor, of necessity) to another location in my apartment. This keeps me in touch with the other club members (through its weekly roundtable on the local repeater), but I have yet another problem -- I cannot get to the club's monthly meetings because I don't drive, and the meetings are held in an area too far away for me to walk to them. There is an amateur operator here in my town, but for some reason he will not have anything to do with me -- even though I haven't insulted him or given him any other reason not to want to associate with me. I even went so far one night, during one of the club's 2-meter roundtable sessions, as to give this person my name, address and telephone number over the air in case he might want to help me out, but I never heard anything from him after that. I then e-mailed the club president, asking if there was any possibility of having one of the members come to my apartment to take me to the meetings and back home afterward; the response was, however, that my club membership does not provide for this kind of assistance. The local public transportation service is no help either because it does not run after about seven o'clock in the evening; our meetings begin at 7:30 and usually do not end until well after ten.
So there you have it. I know this almost sounds like a sob story or seemingly endless complaining but believe me, it's all true. I guess I'll just have to do the best I can with Echolink and my 2-meter FM rig; as I said, these systems are much better than nothing, but still, I wish sometimes I could still use my 100-watt HF rig. I came so close to working all states at my previous residence (49, including Hawaii) and had worked 20+ countries on 20 and 15 meters. I also enjoyed the dickens out of working CW on 30 meters, which I cannot do on Echolink because it does not support that mode -- why, I may never know.
73,