Radio Inactive

Do you ever feel like your get up and go has got up and gone? I know I do and quite regularly too. Stressed out and fed up everything can go to hell when I feel like this. It is usually just for a short period after I finish my night shifts and my brain feels like it is stuffed with cotton wool. The one thing that has been my constant comfort has been my radio and the company of good pals with a sense of ironic humour that makes me laugh. Even when I do not feel too much like talking there are SOTA activations and DX contacts that require a minimum of conversational skills. I can usually sit at the radio and literally loose days at a time either ragchewing or spinning the dials on a dozen rigs. Just lately however it has been different; I have found myself either turning the radios off or forgetting to turn them on in the first place.

Today I sat sorting screws that had accumulated in a tray in a draw of my computer desk. Somebody had left a microphone keyed on the 2m calling frequency and was working a station in Algeria on 10m. My initial reaction was like most folk and that was to call him all the plonkers under the sun, but unlike the idiots who tried to tell him by calling on the same 2m frequency he was transmitting on or tried to key him out I thought I would see if I could hear the DX too. My rig was tuned to 80m and as I came up through the bands everything above 40m was buzzing. When I finally got to 10m there was wall to wall activity. I tuned up and down the band trying to decide who to work and then unable to make up my mind I went down to 12m, had a listen and the carried on down the bands until I got to 20m when I turned off.

I just could not be bothered and it bothered me. A little later I had a look for MS0WRC Isle Of Tiree IOTA Expedition who someone called Peter had told me about on the local repeater earlier and soon found them. I had my microphone in hand but someone beat me to the call and although I listened for ten minutes I did not pick up the mic again.

My new Icom 7400 is still sat in the box, much to the annoyance of Helen who has more than once threatened to sell it or give it away. I can't even really put my finger on why I feel like this, it is not like I feel particularly depressed and I have been busy with other things. This weekend we have a RAYNET event so I have the perfect excuse as to why the new rig is not installed in the shack, but I really must motivate myself to get it done and maybe the shiny rig will rejuvenate my enthusiasm for the hobby again. After all with winter approaching what else do I want to do on cold wet days and long dark nights? Then there is the North Wales Radio Rally at the end of the month, no point in going if I don't have a big list of toys to buy and I would not want miss that.

Here I am now kicking myself for not getting some of the great DX there was today in to the log or am I bothered? Mmm! Oh well here's hoping you guys and gals grabbed some of the action I didn't.