Fed up with the hobby !

Well I've packed all but one radio away, I can't put my finger on it, but I really don't get a kick out the hobby at the minute.

Anyone else feeling the same ?

Nope...I run a radio club for a local school & I have just been asked to do some engineering at a local FM station that has been given a new & improved licence. So two us will be improving the wattage on the TX's, replacing the antennas, improving the RDS system & putting a new TX in place whilst we do the above & then running both side by side whilst we encourage listeners to migrate to the new frequency.
And I still love listening on both HF & on my scanner, plus I still operate on the amateur HF bands...But I am fed up with 2 meters FM.

Hmm I am sorry to hear you are feeling that way. I love the hobby and making new friends, giving advice and so on. I am also involved in the local radio clubs and am the Secretary at the Mold & District ARC. The only downside is it's hard to fit radio into the family life at the moment but I am lucky enough to have a 2 - 70 in the works van :-).

When I was on CB I took a few short breaks and packed it in for a few years but came back on 11m before taking the test. We all need a break sometimes but with Amateur Radio there is so much to do within the hobby...

Hmm maybe I need to look at another aspect of the hobby, gets so disillusional when you try and work stations on HF and the big-guns fire over the top with amps and multi element beams on huge towers.

I'm off to seek solace in beer, one more Hertog Jan before bed

I know what you mean... Being an M3 I was only licenced to 10w and now I'm allowed to use 50w it's still not enough at times but the power isn't everything... I like 17m when it's open as it's a contest free band...

Don't give up... Work sats :-) start SOTA :-) or something... At least working SOTA you have the best possible height ;-).

19ax145 wrote:Hmm maybe I need to look at another aspect of the hobby, gets so disillusional when you try and work stations on HF and the big-guns fire over the top with amps and multi element beams on huge towers.

I'm off to seek solace in beer, one more Hertog Jan before bed

Have you tried PSK & SSTV? It's not my sort of thing, but to be a "BigGun" on there you need less than 50 watts, most seem to run around 40 watts.
I'm also a big fan of Echolink, via the PC...I love listening to NASA's live International Space Station feed & using repeaters all over the world from home.
Locally we are lucky, most summers our local repeater gets piles of Dutch stations accessing it, so even a 1 watt VHF handy is able to give new licencees a taste of continental contact...In fact Ionce worked a German Station via a French repeater using my 5 watt VHF handheld during a lift, plus I have worked most of Europe & that Includes the former Soviet Block countries on 20 meters using an old cheap non NB FT817 & a mobile whip mounted on a cheap CB mag mount...So big power & antennas are not always needed.

Echolink - I did have an account with my G0 call but never got round to actually trying to use it, did some PSK and SSTV when I lived in the UK.

Actually I might have a go at doing some 2M work, I've managed to work back to G from PA on 2M before using my ft817 - maybe setting myself a challenge of getting a decent 2M station on the air is something I need to do to kickstart the interest for me.

PA1SOP wrote:Well I've packed all but one radio away, I can't put my finger on it, but I really don't get a kick out the hobby at the minute.

Anyone else feeling the same ?

Yep, know the feeling indeed. Must say know it well, and the more years on air more people feel the same. It will pass, that is for sure