Getting comfortable

 

As much as it is hard for me to believe, this past year I officially became a senior citizen in Canada—that’s 65 years old. Do I feel older? Not really at all, but one thing I have noticed is that my long periods of contesting have required me to make some adjustments. It may not have anything to do with me getting older, but deep down, I know it’s a factor. Being a fan of radio sport, I sit for long periods of time in front of the PC and the radio. Below are some of the adjustments this senior citizen has made to make radio sport easier.

 

To begin with, all who are involved in radio sport sit for long periods of time. For that reason, I have an office chair with above-average support: adjustable lumbar support, head and neck support, height adjustment, rollers for easy movement, and, finally, height-adjustable armrests—more on that later.

 

All my monitors are on adjustable arms, and I have them all adjusted to eye level. There is no looking up or down. In the past, I have found that continued looking up or down can get aggravating on my neck and shoulders. I have also moved the monitors in close so they are easy to see, reducing eye strain from small print. I have the programs I need for radio sport spread out over two screens. This way, information is not cramped, and nothing is hidden in the taskbar. Finally, I have a monitor connected to my Icom 7610. This stops me from looking down at the radio display. All the information is at eye level,and large and easy to see. Having said all the above there is one monitor connected to my Raspberry Pi4B that I use for Hamclock. The monitor for this sits on the top shelf of my desk. I have no room for another eye level monitor. I only check this monitor from time to time to view VOACAP propagation. 

 

During contesting, there are times I use the VFO for tuning while searching and pouncing (S&P). For this reason, I have moved the radio closer to me on the desk. It allows me easy reach to the radio with no leaning forward and overstretching.

 

One piece of hardware I use all the time is the keyboard. In my case, I use a full-size keyboard, the Lenovo Professional. In the past, I have tried the small keyboards, but I just find them to be a cramped workspace. I have a wrist support that is the full length of the keyboard. I found it was too low, and my wrists were still at an angle, so I added just the right amount of 3x5 cards under the support to get the right height. The keyboard itself is on an adjustable tray for both height and closeness to me. Once the keyboard is at the right level and closeness, I have adjusted the armrests on my chair so my arms are level with the keyboard.

 

Now, a computer would not be complete without a mouse. My mouse is off to the right and also has a wrist support. Right beside the mouse is my Icom VFO B RC-28, sharing the same wrist support. On the left side of the keyboard, I have another smaller keyboard tray that extends from the side of the large keyboard tray. I have a mouse connected to my Icom 7610. This mouse allows me to click on band spots that are shown on the waterfall display on the large monitor at eye level. This allows me to slide my left hand off the keyboard, click on a spot, and return to the keyboard without even looking down.

 

Alongside N1MM+ logging software, I also use the Win4icom suite. This allows me to change bands, and each band macro is set up to adjust filter, noise reduction on or off, noise blanker on or off, RF gain per band setting, and filter settings if needed. I can have all this done with one mouse click on the Win4icom software.

 

I am able to use my hearing aids along with my headphones. My hearing aids have fine adjustments I can make to allow me to hear weaker signals and adjust tone and sound for maximum benefit and less fatigue. All this can be saved to my iPhone and called up when I need it. My setting name is “Contesting.” All I do is swipe the iPhone hearing aid app to Contesting, and it sets everything up automatically.

 

The final thing is a portable heater set up at my keyboard level and set to low heat. In the winter, even if my radio room is warm, I find that over time my fingers get very cold. When this happens, the heater is turned on, and warm air blows across the keyboard. In no time, my fingers are nice and warm.

 

In the station setup picture the mouse on the right is my main PC mouse along with the RC-28 external vfo. On the left side the mouse on the blue mouse pad controls the Pi4b Hamclock screen. Its a bit hard to see but under the tray that holds the Pi4b mouse and Begali key is the tray that holds the mouse for the Icom 7610 in which I can click on waterfall signals.  

 

These setup ideas I use may not only be for us seniors but for anyone. I just find that as I get a bit older that these help greatly. If you have any suggestions of your own, do drop them in the comments.

RAC Winter contest was a bust!!

 

I was very disappointed, but I wanted to err on the side of caution. This weekend was the running of the RAC Winter contest, which is very well attended. I get a lot of practice running in this contest, and it is a great help in my contesting journey. Unfortunately, the weather forecast put a damper on the weekend contest. For our area, high winds were forecast up to 100 km/h along with rain that could turn into freezing rain. My antenna, the Hustler 4BTV, according to DX Engineering, is rated for winds up to 88 km/h. At the best of times, I don’t like to venture even close to that number with my antenna. This weekend it “could” reach 100 km/h, and then add to that the possibility of freezing rain. This weather event was to start on Friday and run until Saturday evening.

I have the ability to tilt the antenna down and secure it, which is what I did. Being retired now and on a fixed income, to replace the antenna would be about $600.00 with tax and shipping. I am not in a position to drop that kind of money because I decided to leave the antenna up and see what happens. Eventually, I would like to get the Butternut HF6V, as it can withstand winds up to 130 km/h. For the most part, other than a hurricane, I could leave it up without worry. At this point in time, that antenna is way out of our budget for a hobby.

The antenna will go back vertical on Sunday, and it lives for another day on the air, pushing out CW. It did give me more time on the weekend to spend working on my python coding projects for ham radio. 

As a side note my participation in the contest would not had been as heavy as like in days gone by. We found out 2 weeks ago that my wife Julie has cancer. Things worked out great in that all with in a 2 week period she was able to see a specialist and then see a cancer surgeon and then have surgery as well. She had her operation on Wednesday and is now at home. We shall now see what the next steps are, but for now we are just enjoying Christmas.  

ARRL 10m contest 2025

 

Final score 

 

Another ARRL 10m contest is in the books, and once again, I was surprised by how well 10m performed. The solar numbers were good—not great, but good. This meant there was fading in and out of signals. At one point, when I was calling CQ contest and a station came back to me, you had one chance to complete the contact, or they were gone for good.

 

CQ world wide DX CW contest 2025

Nice to see this type of action on 10m. 

Once again, the CQ WW CW contest has come to an end. Although the conditions were not as favorable as last year, it was still a fantastic event. Some highlights included contacting fellow blogger Bas, who was using his new contest call PA6G on 20m, as well as reaching ZD7VJ on St. Helena Island and VP8NO on the Falkland Islands. 

 

I was pleasantly surprised to connect with many South American stations on 10m on Sunday afternoon. I’m pleased to report there were no station issues at all—everything ran very smoothly.