[Jeffhs]

I received the Nagoya whip antenna (non-telescoping) the other day. As VK member Dave (davet753, KM4NYI) said, this whip works 100 times better than the stock rubber duck; on the FM broadcast band I was hearing stations I don't normally hear on any other FM radio in my apartment, including my Zenith C-845.

However, the Nagoya whip fails miserably on transmit, at least in my area. I tried and tried again, with the Baofeng HT set at high power (4 watts), to hit the nearest repeater, with no luck at all. I am sure the HT is working, as I listened to it on another HT--the transmitter and even the offset are working fine (I tried the radio on both simplex and +/-600kHz transmit offset).

I guess this must be a function of my location in relation to that of the repeater I am trying to use. Even my Icom IC-T22a doesn't reach this repeater anymore; I used to be able to hit the machine with no problems, using only 1.5 watts and a 3/8-wave telescoping whip antenna. If not, the only other thing I can figure is there may be obstructions between my apartment and the repeater. The last time I tried to access the machine in question (N8BC/R, 147.81-21, +600 kHz offset) to check into a local radio club net last night, the NCS (net control station) immediately said that he was hearing a station that was very noisy and unreadable (I am reasonably sure he was referring to me, although the NCS did not mention my call sign). "Increase power, try another location" were his two suggestions, neither of which applied to me since I was already transmitting at the maximum power my IC-T22a offers (1.5 watts) and I was operating my HT in a cramped area of my bedroom, so I couldn't move around much if at all (my apartment is very small).

Chalk this one up to the fact that I live in an RF fringe area, at least where 2m FM amateur radio repeaters are concerned. The only other alternative I have at this point is to do my hamming using Echolink, an amateur radio linking app developed by a ham in New England (Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD). I installed this app on both my desktop computer and my tablet computer. I'm glad I did, because the problems I just mentioned have precluded any further amateur operations using RF-based amateur radio gear.

Oh well. It was a lot of fun while it lasted (16 years). At my previous residence, a three-bedroom house in a Cleveland suburb, I had a 100-watt Icom IC-725 and an all-band dipole, and I was working the world, especially on 30-meter CW. Seems every time I called CQ on thirty meters, someone would answer me.

There is one bright spot, however, in that Echolink hamming does not cause TV interference or radio interference. I am also considering the fact that EL is completely digital, which brings my amateur radio operations fully into the 21st century. No need to worry about lightning striking antennas, either, since EL does not use them; it is purely a digital system using streaming audio. It's not true ham radio by any means, but when you are in a situation like mine, you take whatever solution you can find.

73,