First, Goals for 2024
First, a review of the goals I set for 2024 and how I did.
Kilo at US-1999 – This goal was completed in April of 2024. That felt pretty good and it went quickly. Given that it was my park of choice for most of the winter, it wasn’t exactly a surprise that I made it.
New Antenna at Home – I don’t think that I will ever stop kicking myself for putting this off as long as I did. This whole project was a perfect example of analysis paralysis. It was also a great lesson in the realities of antennas and compromises. In short, the DX Commander Classic 2 is incredible and I wish I’d installed it when I first considered it. The amount of radio fun I’m having now from home is amazing.
New States Activated – Nope. This was a miss. We didn’t do much in the way of traveling this year as we had a lot going on at home. Maybe next time!
More CW – Oh yes! This was definitely an achieved goal. Most of my POTA contacts in 2024 were CW. I also did some POTA hunting on CW for a change. I’m still learning, but honestly? Life at 16-18 wpm for a POTA activator isn’t bad. My character speed is comfortably at 22 wpm. I’m happy!
Olivia – Another miss. I just didn’t put any time into it. But with what I learned elsewhere and with other things I played with, I still feel pretty good. This just goes back onto the “Need To Try” list.
Packet Radio – YES! I got myself on the air using my Mac. I was able to log in to a BBS and send and receive messages. I even hopped from one gateway to another. This was a lot of fun and I’m going to keep playing with it into 2025.
The goals for 2024 were reasonable and I feel really good about how I did. It was a good idea to put together a list and sort of check it off. It keeps the hobby from getting stale and gives me something to do when I have a bit of time for radio but don’t quite know where to start.
Other 2024 Notes
100 Winlink Check-ins – I checked in to the Winlink Wednesday Net 100 times! Took about two full years to hit this milestone. It was pretty neat when that showed up in the mail.
POTA Worked All States – With many thanks to KC1SRI for his trip to Vermont which got me to where I needed to be (still haven’t gotten Hawaii, but I did get D.C.) to receive this PDF suitable for framing.
FYAO 2024 – One of these days, my dad and I are going to win our club’s winter QRP contest. It wasn’t 2024, but it will happen! We had a great time anyway.
Winlink on Mac – I changed up how I do my Winlink work yet again. This time optimizing for the Mac. It’s so nice to be able to work from one computer for everything.
500 POTA Parks Hunted – This one kind of snuck up on me. I don’t pay much attention to the stats so when this one hit it was kind of a head scratcher. But here we are!
QMX+ Kit Completed – Completing this build is something that is going to be great as I roll into 2025. It’s a new QRP rig for me to take into the field. There are also about 3 or 4 side projects that will spawn from this rig and I’m looking forward to heating up the soldering iron again.
The Verdict
2024 was a great year for me in the hobby. I tried a lot of new stuff and checked off a lot of the goals I set for myself. My home station improved greatly with the addition of the DX Commander Classic 2 antenna and the ICOM IC-7300 as my new base station rig. The more time I spend with the station, the more fun I have. It’s been great!
I’m piecing together goals for 2025 because that seemed like a good way to create inspiration in my operation. Or something like that.
I do hope that you had a great 2024 and I appreciate you reading along. Here’s to 2025 and more Radio Active Fun!
73!
