So, for the 2021 New Year, I decided to give myself a gift. I passed the exam at the Ministry of Communications and received the amateur radio callsign 4X5VA, Grade B, with the capability to transmit up to 250 Watts. I had read quite a lot of material on this topic before, and I was always amazed by the possibility of communicating with the other side of the world using home equipment.
At the beginning, I decided on a direction – it would be 20-meter band communications. After reading several articles and blogs, I decided that the investment in starting this new hobby would only be for a new transceiver. Since here in Israel, people want prices for old junk that are almost as high as for new equipment. After some short reflection, I decided to go with one of the flagships – the ICOM IC-7300. It cost me, including the power supply, 5200 shekels from the Ham Radio Outlet store. This includes shipping and all the taxes I had to pay to customs and DHL. In the end, I even got $100 back on PayPal through a rebate program (apparently in honor of the New Year).
I won’t write a review about it, as many informative articles have already been written about the IC-7300.
I decided not to invest in an antenna for now. Therefore, I built the simplest 20-meter dipole on the roof using 3 sq. mm single-core wire from the nearest hardware store.
I ordered a 1:1 matching transformer from AliExpress and climbed onto the roof to install the antenna. I don’t have a device to measure SWR yet, so I had to measure it using the built-in tools in the IC-7300. Despite the fact that I have a tiled roof, the installation height above it significantly affected the SWR. Also, the water heating tanks on the roof were a factor.
At the moment, everything is working perfectly. The antenna is pointed towards Europe and, accordingly, the Middle Eastern countries.
First Contacts
From the very beginning, I decided to set my first goal in this hobby: to collect 100 countries from the DXCC list. I managed to get the first 30 countries via voice communication (SSB). But then everything started getting more complicated… Currently, I am using FT8. With the help of digital FT8 communication, I managed to get another 15 countries, and it seems I’ve hit a barrier related to my antenna. It “doesn’t see” Africa and South America… In short, I’ll be redirecting it at my new apartment.