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Update 01/11/2019: Finally after many attempts, I managed to get my ZS2 region call sorted out today. I am not going to relate the whole sad story here but I finally managed to get the call I requested, ZS2M, assigned to me. Our move to the Eastern Cape has been postponed again, we had an issue with a furniture moving company going bankrupt but I have now found another company and the move is booked for 8 January 2020. I have also found a company that will transport 3 motor vehicles down to the new QTH for me, I was not looking forward to driving them all down.

I will still be making at least 2 trips to the new QTH before the main move, mostly to transport equipment that I won't trust the moving company with. This will also allow me to start assembling my new station, maybe I will even operate from the new QTH for the end of November 2019 CQ WW CW contest. Would love to start using the new call with a bang! 

Update 22/08/2019: So I applied for an additional call sign to use at my new QTH in ZS2. I first did some research and found 3 calls that I like. I confirmed that they were available before I started the application process. The guy at ICASA says no problem, will process.
About 6 weeks later I eventually get hold of someone at ICASA to ask why I have heard nothing. Ok, they will check. Today I receive an email with the new license attached, only problem is they gave me ZS2RV, not what I asked for and not nice on CW, I know, I had ZS6VER for a while and I don't know how many times I had to repeat that V!! The ICASA person said the call I applied for was taken, just checked again, not true.....
So what now? I wrote back to ICASA complaining, hope it does not take 6 weeks again....... 

Update 02/08/2019: Yesterday marked one year since my retirement, does not feel like it! But I have been very busy this last year, lots of planning had to be done and a lot of time was spent on deciding what we want to do and where we want to live in the future. One things was sure, we wanted to get out of the big city and the rushed lifestyle. Well, we are getting there, a new QTH was found, bought and renovated. Now we are busy getting the old QTH, and so many years of accumulated stuff, sorted out for the move. With the passing of my mother that also added her place and stuff we needed to sort out.

We also want to sell a property, so I need to spend some time getting it ready. Our aim is still to move by October, before that we will most likely make a trip to Namibia as well and spend two weeks there so the next two months are going to be hectic.

I can't wait to get to the new QTH and start assembling the station and antenna farm. First priority would be to get a HF yagi up and at least an inverted V for 40/80/160m. I also need to put up 2m and 70cm yagi's as that will be useful to get into the not so local repeaters and nets in the area.

I have been doing some operating every day, pickings are slim, some CW contacts and even the odd FT8 contact. Hopefully the weekend will produce some more activity. When the bands are closed and I have time I have started preparing and packing equipment for the big move.   

Update 30/07/2019: I was awake early this morning and had a listen around the bands, they were all dead other than some weak FT8 activity on 40 and 80m. I managed to make a few contacts but it was hard work as I do not really have decent antennas on this bands and I was running low power.

This is my third sunspot minima since I have been licensed but I must say it is far worse than I remember. Looking at my logbook confirms that, at least in the past even 15 and 10m opened every now and then, now even 20m seems quiet and the other are just dead even with FT8! I do hope this changes soon, normally conditions are better during our summer so there is hope..... 

Update 29/07/2019: The RSGB IOTA competition this past weekend was fun. Band conditions were not great but 20m was reasonably open Saturday afternoon into early evening. I ended up not spending as much time on the air as I wanted to but with the passing of my mom I had many phone calls and lots to sort out.

Lots of weak CW activity on 20m

I worked quite a few EU and JA stations with a fair number of islands. One pleasant surprise was OJ0DX, Market reef and a few other new islands on CW. I only worked CW and never even listened on the SSB portion of the band. Signals were so weak that I new I had no chance to work SSB stations with my 5W.

I also worked a few stations on 40m but nothing really special.

So far I am happy with the IC-7610, it seems sensitive and I am getting used to the user interface. There are still a few things I am not happy with, for example you can change your CW pitch from the front panel BUT it does not show you what your actual pitch is like some other radios. The notch filter is juts to painful to activate and change! Those flimsy AF/RF controls make the radio feel cheap....

The radio seems to run cooler than my old IC-756ProII/III's, that is a good thing.

I think the best things about this radio is the RX, I have not tested it under crowded strong signal conditions but it is great on weak signals. The screen is also great and it can display a lot of information.

Audio scope along with the band scope, neat!

Overall I like the radio and I think it is a keeper and it will take a permanent place in my contest/DX station. Eventually it will sit next to a FTdx-101D/MP, that would be interesting.

Talking about the FTdx-101, I have been keeping an eye on the forums, seems like lots of hams now have them, initial reports seem fine BUT there are issues, hopefully the issues are just firmware related and can be fixed easily. Time will tell, I am actually glad I decided to wait a bit, just incase it turns out like with the FT-991 and then the FT-991A, as an early adopter I bought a FT-991 but soon the 991A was released to fix some issues, I was not too happy.... I never had issues with my 991 but there were enough issues with things like the finals that I never really trusted it and eventually I got rid of it. 

Update 27/07/2019: I have not been active the last day or so. I woke up at about 2am yesterday morning feeling a bit confused. 15 minutes later my phone rang, very strange that time of the morning! The call ended up being one of those you never want to receive.... It was the old age home where my mom has been staying for a while with the news that she passed away at about 2am. That kind of spoiled my day.....

Initial impressions of the IC-7610 are good, there are a few things that I am not impressed with though. First and foremost must be the quality of the 2 AF/RF controls, the feel flimsy and wobbly, really Icom, that was not very professional! This is one area Yaesu has always been better than Icom, build quality. Secondly I would have like a few more front panel controls, getting to things like the notch filter simply takes too many button presses and knob turns.....

The RX seems great, but the bands are terrible at the moment with only weak signals, will have to wait to see how well it will handle lots of strong signals

This afternoon (from 2pm UTC) the annual RSGB IOTA contest is on the air. I am hoping that conditions will be good enough to work a few islands, maybe even adding to my totals but I do not have high hopes. With zero sunspots chances are 20m will produce a few contacts and maybe around sunset/sunrise 40m might produce something. Running 5W into less than optimal antennas (they are all low at the moment in preparation of taking them down for the QRH move). I will only run 5W and most likely only CW.

We have a local fun CW event between 4 and 5pm local time on 20m and 40m as well, I am hoping to make a few local contacts, we need to get more CW operators in this country!

Update 25/07/2019: The IC-7610 has arrived! First impressions are that it is a beautiful radio. Before even switching it on I opened it up to make sure it does not suffer from the reported issue with loose heat sinks. It appears that they have solved the problem in the later radios, there is no way the heat sinks can become detached on this radio, the are not just stuck on top of the chips they actually wrap around the edges. Good news!

Just out of the box. BTW, these radios are really well packed.


Bottom opened up to check the heat sinks


No issue here!

Once I was happy I connected it up and started getting to know it. All seems easy to understand. A quick check around the bands showed no activity other than on 20m FT8. I called a few times (CW) on 20m but no luck, hopefully the bands will open up a bit later today so that I can make a few contacts!

Calling CQ on a dead band. Screen capture to the internal SD card, neat feature!

This coming weekend is the RSGB IOTA contest, always fun to try and work a few islands, hopefully the bands will play along so that I can give the IC-7610 a bit of a workout! 

Update 23/07/2019: Good news, well I hope it is good news! My offer on the IC-7610 was accepted! It will be here on Thursday so I have some time to look at manuals and also to make space for it in the shack. I am looking forward to playing with a SDR based radio as well as playing with the remote operating capabilities of this radio.

It will be interesting comparing it to my FTdx-5000MP. I will still most likely get a FTdx-101MP in the future but I will now wait till it has been used by others for a while to see if there are any issues...

Update 22/07/2019: The bands have not been great but there are still contacts to be made, locally and DX. I have been getting bored with FT8 but CW is also producing contacts, especially on a contest weekend. We have a few local guys who are keen to get proficient on CW, that is fantastic! I have managed to make contact with a few of them, great fun.

I have now ordered two nice towers for my new QTH, can't wait to rebuild the station, hopefully to a top class DX and contest station. On the same subject, I have also applied for new call signs for myself and the XYL, hopefully we will get the calls we applied for, I am looking forward to a shorter call on CW but I will retain my ZS6DX call for when I am at my secondary QTH.

An Icom IC-7610 became available locally today, it is not my first choice but I have made an offer on it, time will tell if it will soon be in my shack, so far no reaction from the seller 

Update 14/07/2019: I  had some CW fun over the weekend with the IARU HF championships. It was nice to work some great operators and quite a few fast stations! Band conditions were still bad but 15, 20 and 40m produced contacts. I managed to work Hawaii and China on 40m running 5w. Other interesting stations included 9Q6BB in the Congo and E7DX in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I did manage to find the source of all the noise I had on 40m! It turned out it was my logging computer, an Acer notebook. I soon replaced it with a trusty HP notebook so now I can hear stations on 40m again!

This coming week will be a quiet one on the radio front as I will be traveling to the Eastern Cape to go and check on renovations at my new summer QTH. I should be back on Friday so at least next weekend should produce a few contacts. We have a local QRP contest next Saturday, I might just give away a few points!

I have managed to find a company that will make me 2 custom towers for my new QTH and install them. They do professional tower for network companies. I am looking at two 20m towers at the moment. With the QTH on a hill that should give me far better results than my low, city bound, antennas at the moment. For the first time since I have been licensed I will also have space for a decent 80m and 160m antenna, hopefully that will allow me to add to my DXCC totals on those bands.  

Update 12/07/2019: Band conditions have been really terrible the last few days. Yesterday I spent about 2 hours on air trying both CW and FT8 on 20m that seemed to be the only band with some faint signals. Total contacts for the 2 hours was exactly 0, I am sure this is the first time ever that I ended up not making even 1 contact! The new solar cycle really needs to get going now.....  I think I will monitor band conditions over the next month or so, if it stays as bad as this I will put a hold on acquiring the new radio, no use having a fancy new radio and the bands are in such a bad shape........

I have now applied for a new call sign for when I am at my "other" QTH, since ZS2DX was taken, and I wanted the shortest call I could get for CW contesting, I applied for ZS2M, hopefully it will be allocated to me! 

Update 08/07/2019: The bands have been rather bad but the weekend did produce some CW contacts. Saturday afternoon 20m was open into Europe and the Marconi Memorial contest was in full swing. I made a bunch of contacts, nothing special but good practice to get back into CW contesting. Fastest contact was around 45wpm so it seems I will get back to my old speed with a bit of practice.

Sunday afternoon we had a local "Sprint" contest, only 1 hour long and only on 40m (that is silly as the band was in poor condition so we missed many contacts that could have been made on 80 and 20m!). It was still fun with quite a few new CW operators joining, hope this bodes well for future CW operations from South Africa.

I have been doing quite a bit of reading and watched a few YouTube videos trying to decide on a new flagship radio. It looks like it is between the Yaesu FTdx 101D/MP and the Icom IC-7610. The 101 is the leader at the moment with better specifications. It is also larger with more controls, I like that as I hate digging into obscure menus while contesting. The only issue with the 101 is availability, it is brand new, and the possibility that it might have real issues that have not been discovered yet. I will wait a bit, at least till after my QTH move so I will most likely buy second half of October. Time will tell..... 

Update 03/07/2019: I played around on the bands again yesterday, there were weak signals on 15m but 20m was better. I did hear a few CW signals but could not work anyone. First my keyer would not cooperate, I need to have a look at it and then the speaker in the IC-758pro3 I was using died! At first I thought it was the radio, the RX or the audio stage but headphones worked and so did an external speaker.

I opened up the radio to check the plugs but that was not the problem, a test showed that the speaker was open circuit! Digging around in my spares I found a spare one of the right size and soon the radio was up and running again!

Unfortunately by then the 20m band was not as open as it was so was back to FT8 to make a few contacts to check the radio out. All was well so now I have to sort the keyer out, it is simply not keying the radio! 

Update 02/07/2019: I managed to get a radio running yesterday on my only antenna that is working at the moment, the A4S. The bands were dead quiet for most of the afternoon other than a few weak digital signals on 14.074 and 21.074. Since there was nothing else to work I installed FT8 software and made a few contacts. I must say FT8 is amazing when it comes to weak signal work but I have to admit it does not feel like it takes any skill to make the contacts, you just sit there and watch the computer, it soon becomes boring. I made 60 contacts, mostly to Japan and eastern Asia with a few European stations as well as 3B8CW before boredom set in.

I do hope the band conditions improve soon, I am desperate for a few CW contacts, will listen again this afternoon!

Update 01/07/2019: With a QTH move imminent and plans to get active again I am looking at equipment again as mentioned on 27 June, both for my DX and contesting stations, that is if I am going to start contesting again. I still have one Yaesu FTdx-5000MP and I love it but I must say the new FTdx-101MP looks really interesting. The specifications are great and the screen looks good. I need to see if I can source one locally or if I have to import again.

The last time I imported the 5000's it was a real mess and took more than 6 months! If I am only going to be using it for DX in the future one will be fine but if I start contesting again I would ideally need two of them could get expensive! 

Update 27/06/2019: After a long absence from the bands I am planning on getting active again. For the last 3-4 years I simply did not have time for amateur radio between long office hours, other hobbies and looking after my aging mom. Things have now changed, I am now retired and my mom is in a great old age home! I am also leaving the big city and moving to a small town on a stand with LOTS of space for antennas and very little QRN/QRM.

I still have all my equipment but I will be putting up a new tower and antennas most likely starting in September, should be on the air shortly after that. I am still keen on QRP and QRP DXíng as well as some contesting. CW will still be my primary mode, need to practice a bit to get my speed up but from past experience I know it won't take long. The new QTH will also bring a new call sign, hopefully I can secure it soon.

Since I love new "toys" I am also looking at getting some new equipment. One of the newer SDR based HF radios would be nice with the Yaesu FTdx101MP looking really great! I need to do some reading first.

See you on the bands soon!